So how did you break the Canon D20 Kerri?

Ah well, it is a tale of woe, sleepless nights, floods and rampaging pirates (that last may have been a minor exaggeration).

We had people round for tea yesterday. Tea, scones and cakes. It was nice. Anyway, one of the visitors had been unwell and was feeling the cold. So Brian kindly turned on the central heating.

After our visitors departed, we sat down with a glass of wine to watch a film. There was one scene in the film I wanted to make a point about, so we paused the film to rewind. At this point we noticed a strange noise coming from the boiler.

We checked the radiators and noticed they were not warm, checked the boiler pressure, came up with a theory that there was air in the system, bled the valves and went back to watching the film.

When the film finished we could still hear the funny noise. So we cooked up another theory about the air in the boiler system overheating the water circuit. So we ran the hot water until it went cold, hoping this would sort the problem.

It was about 12:30 at this point, Brian went off to bed while I waited for the hot water to run cold. It made no difference, so I found a torch and went round to the front of the house to look at the boiler.

I found the problem. The mains water feed into the house had sprung a major leak and was flooding out the bed in front of the house.

Shite.

Got Brian up to have a look. We decided there was nothing we could do until morning and it looked like the water was draining away sufficiently not to cause a problem.

However, the noise of the water escaping was rattling though all the pipes in the house (due to proximity of main feed coming into the house with the central heating pipes).

So I could not sleep.

So I went to the spare bedroom and settled down there where it was quieter.

However, the spare bed is firmer than ours and aggravated my dodgy hip, so I hauled myself out of bed to go downstairs and fetch a hot water bottle to soothe it.

It was at this point, in the dark, that I tripped over the camera tripod.

My trusty Canon is in need of major TLC.

If I were not an athiest I would be send up a prayer of thanks for an understanding hubby who knows just how clumsy his wife is and bought the extended accidental damage cover for the camera. As it is I'll just cook him breakfast.

The week ahead of sorting out insurance and plumbers fills me with dread.

My sense of humour has failed.