No water

Hope and Jim live at the end of the terrace. You must understand there are only 10 houses in this particular place, and they live at number 10. Graham and his wife live a bit further along at number 5.

Graham and Jim, I think it's fair to say, don't get along particularly well. There was once a nasty incident involving a mouse. Perhaps we shouldn't get in to that here.

Anyway, on this particular evening, Hope had walked the dogs a fair old way and she fancied a nice hot bath. Up she went, turned on the taps....and....absolutely nothing.

"Jim," she said, "there's no water coming out of the bath taps."

"Don't be ridiculous woman." You must understand Jim's personality to know he would never believe anything Hope had to say, "of course there's water coming out of the bath taps."

He thundered up the stairs to show her how stupid she was being.

"Well you stupid mare, what have you done now?"

This went on for some time, and even involved an allen key and spanner....but alas, no water was forthcoming. Meantime Hope, who had retired to the bedroom, could hear maniacal laughter coming from the front of the house.

"Jim," she whispered, "there's someone in the front garden"

By this time, Jim quite believed what his wife told him, as he'd spent the best part of half an hour trying to fix the no water situation in the bathroom, so he turned off the bedroom light and drew back the curtains. There, in the front garden, with the biggest spanner he'd ever seen was Graham...with a manhole cover at his feet.

Well, this was too much for Jim, who found the biggest spanner he had in his toolbox and headed down to the front garden.

A tussle ensued, like knights of old the two men (both well in their 70s) jousted with their spanners. The police were called and everyone else in the row came out to watch. After all, in a village of just 10 houses, two men going at it tooth and nail with spanners is sport of the highest order.

I'm not entirely sure what happened after this - it was many years ago and I was dragged off to bed. Needless to say Jim decided to fit a lock to the front gate - and always believe what Hope told him.



*the names have been changed