A Little Excitement

I don't mind a little excitement now and then, but I really prefer to have had my AM coffee first. This morning, (before coffee) I was finishing up brushing my teeth, and I noticed that the water wouldn't shut off all the way. I told Tom, and he came to look at the faucet, and it immediately started leaking worse. He tried to move it around a little and it totally broke - with water shooting all over the bathroom. So, he reached under the sink to shut the water off, and we heard the shut-off valve snap. Some of our guests came to "help", and we had quite a crowd in the bathroom watching the water shoot all over. Finally, someone suggested shutting off the main water valve. Luckily, Tom had suspected for a long time that the funny-looking, sort of rusty, flange-type thing in the middle of the wall on the stairs MIGHT be some sort of shut-off valve. He turned it, and ta-da - no more shooting water.

Then of course, we were stuck with guests upstairs eating breakfast, wanting showers, etc. and no water. Since Tom doesn't have many tools here and no plumbing parts laying around, we decided we had better find a plumber. Sometimes a hard thing to do even when there isn't a language barrier.

So, off I went, wondering if I could find any of the folks we know who speak English and might be able to recommend a plumber. But, as I stepped out the door, I realized that there is a large construction crew working on the house next to the castle- doing a total restoration. There were several men at work already, so I ran over and asked in my best Czech if any of them were plumbers. One guy volunteered to come look at the problem. He called someone on the phone, and within an hour we had two guys working on the problem. An hour after that, and everything was back in place, the bathroom was clean, and I finally got my coffee!!