A Run of Bad Luck

Sorry ...... been a bit busy lately with a run of bad luck.
Two weeks ago Laura fell over and tore the cruciate ligament in her knee. This has caused immense problems for everyone. She can't use crutches so she has had to manage with a leg brace and wheelchair. Manipulating a wheelchair in confined spaces is an acquired art at the best of times but with a leg sticking straight out in front .......?? We have great difficulty getting her into the car, and even getting her to bed is an effort because, once in the standing position, she can't hop on her good leg so has to be lifted everywhere. With a bad back myself at the moment, this is not good news.
Then to make matters worse we had a bit of a flood on Friday night. We had a new bathroom fitted a year or two ago with one of these new fangled toilet cisterns with a piston valve rather than a normal syphon. It was all boxed in and looks very nice ......... until something goes wrong. And when it does it's disastrous because you can't get to the cistern to do anything about it. In this case the valve would not re-seat after the flush, which meant that water was continually flowing into the pan and the cistern never filled up. We are on a water meter and could have run up a huge bill if we didn't do something about it - so try we did. We managed to get the front panel off so we could see the front of the cistern but there was then only about a centimetre gap between the top of the cistern and the fixed worktop above. No room to get my hand in. I recruited James with the smallest hand in the family, and instructed him to feel for a plunger and push it down. As he pushed his hand into the gap the cistern moved backwards a little and the pipe from the cistern to the pan came adrift. There was immediately a flood of water onto the bathroom floor. Panic all round. We'd only just had a new carpet fitted on the stairs and landing four days previously so top priority was to prevent any water leaving the bathroom. Every available towel in the house was pressed into service to act as a kind of sandbag barrier across the doorway while I rushed downstairs to turn off the stopcock. This was achieved fairly rapidly but unfortunately the flood did not stop. Water was still pouring out from behind the WC pan. It took a while to click that this water was actually coming downwards from the tank in the roof. ........ Ladder ...... up into roof ....... try and reach the tanks from the hatchway (there's not a lot of room to actually get up, and loads of cross beams to block your way if you do manage it). There were three pipes coming from the tank and only one had a tap on it. I turned it anyway. We turned all taps on full to drain down the system as quickly as possible and, eventually the flood stopped......... only about two inches deep on the bathroom floor and not a drop on the new carpet! However, at some point before I disappeared into the loft, it was noted that water was running down the light fitting in the hall below. A bowl was strategically placed to catch this but a minute or two later the entire electrical system was blacked out. We carried on baling and mopping by torchlight.
Then Alice came home. Now Alice has a different set of priorities to everyone else. She was not the least concerned that we had had a major flood and had all been working manically to prevent the new carpet being ruined. Her only concern was that we now had no electricity in the house so she would not be able to use her hair straighteners in the morning! If only that was my biggest problem!