I was just about to leave for the match when …

So its a Friday night, there’s a rugby match on at Headingley and I am a season ticket holder, its a well rehearsed routine, I get ready and I leave the house at 7pm, park the car in the same place by 7.20 and in the ground for 7.30, ready for the 8pm kickoff.

So its 6.58pm and I have my coat on, season ticket, money and car keys, “I’m off” I yell at the wife and from somewhere in the house she yells back “Not yet you’re not”.

And it transpires that despite her nagging me all week I have still not fixed the two loose floorboards in our bedroom, the bedroom where we took up the old carpet and booked the carpet fitters to come along at 9am on the Saturday morning to lay a new one, said floorboards are still loose and creaking and she doesn’t want loose and creaking floorboards underneath a new carpet, she wants them fixing and she wants them fixing now.

I know better than to argue.

Its two loose floorboards, it will take four nails and maybe three minutes to fix.

I take my hammer and four nails into the bedroom and quickly have one floorboard secure and not creaking at all, still in my coat and ready to dash for the car I turn my attention to the second creaky floorboard, first nail goes in with just one blow, the very last nail which with hindsight was probably not even needed meets a bit of resistance but with a bit more persuasion from the hammer goes in perfectly, floorboard is now absolutely secure.

And now there is a hissing noise coming from somewhere.

Its coming from under the floorboard

I have to leave now or I won’t get my regular parking space.

Its the central heating pipe under the floor, there is now a nail stuck straight through it, I know this, but I refuse to acknowledge it.

I have to leave now or I won’t get into the ground before the kickoff

My wife yells from downstairs that we have water pouring through the ceiling into the living room.

There is no way that I am going to be able to leave this house without stopping our new bedroom water feature, its now a three foot high fountain of warm water, I go and find a bucket to catch it in and tell her to keep an eye on it, replace the bucket at frequent intervals when it fills, and I’ll sort it when I get back from the rugby.

I awake minutes later on the floor, dazed and with a newly blackened eye and the knowledge that I have to fix the leak first.

I invent several new swear words and set about trying to find the shut-off valve for the central heating, its not in the obvious places and I have to get the ladders out and climb up into the loft.

There is no shut-off valve for the feed pipes into the central heating system, the fountain of water in the bedroom is being fed by the central heating header tank which in turn is connected directly to Yorkshire Water’s own supply pipe which in turn is connected directly to the huge reservoir at the top of the hill that feeds the whole of this district – we could be waiting and emptying buckets for an awful long time while the reservoir empties.

I find a valve that feeds the header tank that feeds into the heating system, I turn this off, now we only have to wait until the water level in the system subsides below the first floor level.

After many buckets of water the fountain vanishes below floorboard level and I put my coat on to leave for the rugby, at least I’ll catch the second half.

My wife asks where I think I am going, “to the rugby” I reply, “and what about our heating” she responds, “there is none, put a coat on” is my best advice and I run from the house before any more is said on the subject.

Just in case anyone is interested, Homebase opens at 8am on a saturday and it is possible to buy a straight-through compression connector and fit it to a burst pipe having sawn out the burst bit, in the 60 minutes before your carpet fitters arrive – I’m an ace at plumbing me.