Of Mice and Men …and sinks (+ a giggle along the way!)

12, Jun 2016 by Hilary Coombes">Hilary Coombes in Latest News,Life,Writing     No Comments

 

 

Why did we bother to carry our sink! Look at all the nice shiny Spanish sinks for sale!

We carried this bloomin’ kitchen sink from England to Spain, and that was some adventure as some of you might remember

I said it was doomed from the outset and I wasn’t far wrong, for the sink obviously wanted to remain in the UK and had no wish to embrace life as a sink in sunny Spain.

We arrived at our Spanish home totally fed up with the bad luck that the sink had brought us and next morning my man (known to others as my husband), gently unloaded it from our jam-packed car.

Day 1

It lay in the garage whilst he removed the old rusty sink (I didn’t know stainless steel could rust) and I feel sure that as it lay there it was hatching up the next bit of misery for us.

Day 2 and 3

My man had brought with him from England all the plumbing fittings that he needed for the unhappy ‘new’ sink, but guess what, they weren’t compatible with existing Spanish pipework. Well, there you go, problem number one. Two days later we’d tracked down the bits of plastic that would do the job (hopefully).

Day 4 and 5

Of course the hole that had been originally cut for the installation of the ‘rusty’ sink wasn’t big enough for the bowl of the new sink. So the under sink shelf was removed and worktop had to be lifted …not an easy job because it was jammed in tight and along the way the trim was ruined and a mosaic plate decided to leave it’s mooring on the wall.

Worktop gone my man could try out the newly bought plumbing fittings — bad luck, there was a problem because of the position of the waste which was in a different position to the ‘rusty’ sink. Another shopping trip — but that day was a Saints Day (Sorry I’ve forgotten which one, there are so many) so shopping had to wait.

Now we’re sinkless!

Day 6

My man who must have been thoroughly fed up with the whole event (but didn’t show it …he’s a good man) was ready for our reluctant UK sink to be lifted into place.

All the new plumbing fittings liked each other and were ready to be joined once the sink was in situ. The work surface was back in place, minus a bit sawn off the end this time, so we didn’t have such a big struggle to get it laid flat.

Can you guess what happened next? I’m not sure how to tell you this, but we dropped the reluctant English sink at this point …you’ve guessed it — it broke into pieces.

My man didn’t swear (I’m not telling you what I said).

Day 7

Another shopping trip. This time to buy a new Spanish sink and another shed load of plumbing fittings.

I hate to tell you this but the sink we bought didn’t drop neatly into the hole made in the worktop for the broken English sink, so we are about to do a rerun of days 4, 5 and 6, but the upside of it is that we’re getting much faster at it all now. Anyone in need of a plumber?

I’m not going to depress you any more relating this sad story but from the bottom of my heart I advise you to leave an English sink in England if it shows any sign of not wanting to move.

I’m sure to have described some plumbing term totally incorrectly so please forgive me in advance for that, but I’d love to hear if you enjoyed reading my little true tale — even if the ending is a bit sad …for the sink!