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Woke up yesterday morning to find the water was off.

A quick phone call to the neighbours reassured us (and them) that it wasn't personal; the whole village was off. Electricity off on Tuesday, no water on Wednesday, Mike - the neighbour I had phoned - is convinced that the gravity will be disconnected on Friday. I then spent ages trying to find the phone number of whoever is in charge of making the water come out of our taps while thinking up ingenious ways of getting some water from the river to our toilet cistern. Three people, one toilet, hot weather? I wanted to be able to flush it - tying a rope to the handle of a bucket and bunging it off the bridge seemed the easiest solution.

Eventually I found the number, and got stuck in one of those:

"If you are a not an existing customer and want to report your frustration at being held in a queuing system, please press hash followed by your 27 digit customer number"

things.

Eventually I got a recorded message saying:

"We are aware of the problem with the supply in Ballachulish
- you have wasted 15 minutes of your life listening to a robot".

I phoned Mike to tell him that they were aware of the problem with the supply in Ballachulish and I had wasted fifteen minutes of my life listening to a robot.

He told me the water had come back on twenty minutes ago.

I am starting to tie things down before Friday...