Taken For Granted

On sunday night, when I went to do the dishes, nothing came out of the tap. Which was strange. I turned it round to cold, and water BLASTED from the faucet, but when i swivelled it back to hot, it dribbled back to nothing. I checked every other tap in the house, and there was no hot water anywhere, so I informed my husband, who decided it was too late to do anything, and we went to bed.

On monday morning - yesterday - when hubby got up to get ready for work, there was still no hot water. In fact, since we're going into autumn now down here in the southern hemisphere, he informed me that the water hitting his feet was like - and i quote - "the icy cold fingers of death". Sometimes he's a little melodramatic. In any event, we ended up having to boil the kettle and fill the sink in the bathroom so he could in effect have a sponge bath, and then he braced himself to wash his hair with the cold water from the shower. That can't have been fun. I didn't risk it, and decided to take my chances at stinking down the house.

When he got home from work yesterday afternoon, he had a look at the hot water heater, and since he couldn't see anything obviously wrong, we called a plumber, who was here in about 3-4 hours. Turns out the valve to let water into the heater had collapsed. We weren't getting any hot water because there was no hot water. The water heater was happily sitting there heating the air inside it, because NO WATER COULD GET IN. So he replaced the valve, and now we have hot water again. YAY. (On a down note, the heater is ten years old, and they have a lifespan of ten years. I see a new hot water heater on our horizon soon...)

Being without hot water all day was annoying. Having to boil the kettle, or put a pot on the stove every time we wanted something other than near-freezing was very much a bother. But it got me thinking about how privileged we are to have such easy access to a plumber, so we can have hot water. Even to be in an area that has running water.

When my mother was an infant, her family didn't have access to running water. My grandmother had to walk to the well with a bucket, and I gather it was quite some way away. This was only a little over 60 years ago. In the USA. Yeah, I had trouble believing it too. But there are people who still live like that, or worse. Whose accessible water not only isn't running, it isn't even clean. And hot? Only if it's summer.

Most of my country* is in drought (so maybe I did good by not having a shower?). We in the cities aren't allowed to use a hose on the garden, and further inland farms are lying vacant because there isn't enough water to grow anything, so the farmers can't afford to keep farming. Sydney's (where I live) water supply is at less than 60% capacity, and hasn't been anywhere near full for 7 years. But we still HAVE water, and it's clean. And when the heater is working, it's hot too.

There are so many things we take for granted, but any of them could be gone at any time. I think I'm going to pay more attention from now on.




*The rest of the country is flooded. Thats right. It's either parched, or under water. This place is CRAZY.