The Flood

I learned a very valuable lesson this morning - if you think your 9 year old is having too much fun in the bath then probably there is trouble looming.

I was in Jesse's bedroom giving it a good sort out and moving the furniture around when Jenna started to scream at me from downstairs.  I raced down to find water pouring out of the cupboard where my recipe books reside.

At the same time, Jesse was calling from upstairs so Jenna went up to see what it was all about, only to find herself standing in 2 inches of water in the bathroom.  Apparently Jesse had been swishing backwards and forwards in the bathtub and of course most of the water was on the floor.  He was blissfully unaware of what was happening below him.

I quickly rescued my recipe books, soaking wet.  By this time the water had stopped running as Jenna was mopping up the bathroom floor.  I got my full week's exercise running up and down the stairs in those few moments.  Not only had it flooded the bathroom and the kitchen, it had also flooded the basement.

What actually happened was that the water had gone down the heating vent which was not water tight and splurted out wherever it could, in the kitchen cupboard and the basement.

We mopped up using every available towel and dragged all of the recipe books out onto the deck in the sun.  We sorted them into very damaged, not so damaged and totally OK.  Actually the damage was only minor but the weird thing was that it only flooded that one cupboard.  The cupboards on either side were fine.

I got out the washing airer and hung my books over it so the pages wouldn't stick together.  All in all, the result was not too bad.  It gave me the opportunity to thumb through all my recipe books again and rediscover some old favourites and new recipes I'd like to make.  Fun times in the Karl house today.