Water, water but where?

Water cuts are a way of life up here in Umbria.

Don’t know what’s for dinner as the water has been cut off for about the fifth time in as many days. All of our stuff is in the dishwasher which has now gone haywire, of course.

The problem with the water is that we live at the top of a mountain. The water gathers in a tank at the bottom and is pumped up. Unfortunately:

1. The size of the tank is based on the number of people who lived here some time ago.
2. Those people were not really on mains water, had their own springs and didn’t have modern appliances.
3. The pumps are old.
4. As soon as the water goes back into the tank, the savvy ones fill up their spare tanks thus creating another shortage.
5. We are at the very end of the line.
6. Our Comune is very poor and VUS who supply the water are not much better off it seems.
7. Half the time the girls who take the calls from people saying there is no water don’t tell the blokes who are actually going to have to fix it.
8. At the end of the summer, there isn’t too much water to go around anyway.

Damaris has just phoned again (about 4 hours has elapsed since we reported it). It seems our original call was forgotten and they’ve just noticed it ten minutes ago. That means no water again tonight.