No Hot Water

I knew that due to our new chosen lifestyle & adventures, that we’d have good & bad experiences with accommodation. However, I didn’t realise that we’d be able to feel if a house was right straight-away, but we did. Just as we knew the pink Galician cottage was perfect as soon as we arrived, somehow we didn’t warm to the yellow house.

It was a decent size, had all the facilities we needed (apart from hot water), had a secure garden & excellent views, but it didn’t feel like home. Both Rob & I sensed this exactly the same.

The lack of hot water was a problem & I’d emailed the landlord to ascertain if we’d omitted to do something. Following his instructions, I took photos to prove that all the switches were on in the fuse-box, the water tank was plugged in & the power indicator light was lit on it to prove this.

He promised to send a plumber the following day.

However, I was flying to London the following day for an annual client event & couldn’t do-so feeling dirty. We’d not had a bath since the previous morning & had packed, travelled, unpacked & shopped so were definitely feeling grotty.

As the flight was early from Porto an hour away, instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to drive, at 5pm, I booked a very cheap airport hotel for that night. At least I’d (hopefully) be warm & could have a shower, so we set-off for Porto on Sunday evening.

As we’d travelled to the hotel on the motorway through many tolls, Rob decided to programme Billy to avoid tolls on the way back. This was both to save a few Euros & in our right-hand drive car, Rob wouldn’t have to get out to walk around to retrieve the toll ticket & then make payment.

The journey there took less than an hour, so I was getting worried when he’d not called two hours after he’d set-off back. Eventually a very frustrated Rob phoned. He’d had a hell of a journey back in the dark through the centre of Porto, apparently full of roundabouts & traffic lights. It would have been worth the tolls to avoid the extra time taken, miles & fuel used.

Lesson learned!

My night wasn’t a quiet one in the hotel as the carpets & walls were thin, the corridors & stairs wooden. Every foostep was loud & the couple in the next room were having bedtime fun! Eventually I dropped-off, only to be woken at 1am by a massive bang above me, immediately followed by a child’s piercing & extended screech. With running backwards & forwards, upstairs & down, the baby didn’t stop screaming & an ambulance soon arrived. I’ve no idea what happened to the poor child, but do hope it was OK.

Arriving in London by plane on Monday morning didn’t feel any stranger than it did when trvelling by train from Nottinghamshire. It was an alien environment for me either way. I love working from home as a virtual PA & would hate to have an office job in the capital. The event (which I’d helped organise) was a success & I returned to Porto early the following morning. Now that did feel a little odd to be going ‘home’ to Portugal!

Rob met me at the airport, having travelled the motorway, tolls & all, & we drove back to a cold house which still had no hot water.

For a week, the plumber came each day. He installed a new (bigger) water tank, but still the water barely heated to tepid. Half-way through the week, he identified a leak so the water was draining straight out of the tank & not remaining in there long enough to heat up. By keeping the valve closed at the bottom of the tank, the water heated up. We just had to open it when we needed to use hot water, not ideal but OK for a few days & we could have a shower at last.

Eventually, a week after we’d arrived, after moving a log store & drilling into the wall, the plumber fixed the leak & we finally had permanent hot water!

But the water flow is erratic, with coughs & splutters & there’s a horrid clunking from the bore-hole pump, so we have to turn-off the pump power at the fuse box at night or when we go out…