PLUMBING! By Georgie's Dad.

A lot of women will understand about the whole getting the man in your life whether it be your father, husband, boyfriend, whatever to do something in your house for you that's DIY related. AN' the buggers NEVER forget it. A lot of women say the man "You never do owt around the house." Mainly because it usually is the woman who has to do all the cooking, cleaning an' laundry in these households. Man will reply with "Well I put them shelves up for ya." Yeah, you put them shelves up 4 years ago. Idiots.

Me father's also taken to a sort of shitty bribe thing that has nowt to do wi' me an' me mam at all. Me father's work has nowt to do wi' us. He does all the farm work an' outside estate maintenance, sometimes stuff in the properties too but that doesn't happen often.

This is what he does, 'cause he's too idle to make himsel' a cup of tea an' WON'T make himsel' one when there's a woman int th'ouse.

He'll say to us; "Can you mek us a quick brew then I'll go an get these sheep run through the footbath." Or summat stupid like that.

He makes it sound like if it doesn't get done, then it's our fault. Or that it's imperative we make him a cup of tea  'cause really it's our job that he's doing but we've subbed him the work. Does that make any sense?

Either way, that's what he does. Plus if you're in the house around dinner time, he'll try getting you to make him a sammich just so he doesn't have to. He's quite capable of doing it himself though. But me an' mam work to an' we very rarely have dinner we run on ciggies an' coffee. We don't have the time to be pandering around after me father. If we say "No, kinda busy going back out to work" an' not make him his tea or butty, he goes in a huff with us. I mean he actually get's a proper monk on.

But back to the DIY thing. Me mam's  had a crappy sink in her kitchen for ages now, One of them stupid cheapy plastic ones that stains. It's a 1.5 sink, has the main sink an a funny smaller one int middle next to the draining board. The big part of the sink round the plug hole has had this split in it for ages so even with the plug in, the water drains out. So mam decided she wanted a new stainless steel sink an' sent me out with me dad to B&Q one day to get one. I was there solely for the purpose of making sure me father got a good one; 'cause knowing him he'd come back with some cheap shite.

He spent most of Thursday last week measuring up where the new sink was going seeing as it was a little big bigger than the one already in. Friday was spent pissing about going to an' from Homebase an' Jewsons for kitchen worktop hacking to bits supplies. Jigsaw blades an' crap like that. That evening he started cutting but was "thwarted" by said Jigsaw blades overheating an' splintering the worktop. So then he started pissing about with a hand saw.

SATDAY was the same, 'cept he eventually managed to get the hole cut. Sunday, the sink went in. An most of Sunday was spent with me father, under the sink pissing about with the pipes.

Today, Wednesday. After several days of me father whinging under the damn sink about shitty cowboy plumbers who'd done the original work an' how they can't plumb for toffee. Christ knows what he was doing under there he spent hours cutting an' soldering, more trips to Homebase to buy more plumbing shit an'... whinging. Yes Wednesday. We finally got a real plumber in to sort the pipes. Me father reckoned he had connected up the cold water but never got round to the hot 'cause the cold was giving him grief.

Plumber comes in, there was a bit of noise. He was barely here half an hour. Had both the hot water an' cold water hooked up without having to use flexipipes, bazillions of pipe couplings, yadda yadda. He even said to us he might not have everything he needed in his van to hook it all up 'cause he'd been busy with loads of other jobs. But he still did it. An' here is his handy work.

All he did was put in a new joint for the hot, an' he bent a bit of pipe for the cold. Easy. An I think he didn't have to get a bunch of couplings/joints out his van anyway, 'cause of me father's billion an' one trips to DIY shops, he got pretty much everything anyway. Funny thing is me father has all the gear for doing this, solder, flux, flexipipes, pipe benders, pipe cutters, the lot.

Wanna see what me father come up with for the cold water?

Brace yerself it's pretty similar to abstract art.

I know. Shocking ain't it? In fact the plumber asked me an' me mam why had me father been making pipe mazes. Also, "Tell him he can't solder wet pipes." Was another one. No wonder why when he turned the water back on it were all pissing out the joints.

So my advice to the ladies who has one of these DIY men in their life that can't admit when they've been beaten or have no idea to begin with, yet insist on doing the work themselves 'cause they reckon they'd save some money. DON'T LET THEM. When it takes them the best part of a week to do summat that really should've taken 2 days or so to have everything done just 'cause they're NOT ORGANISED, get a bloody professional in. It'll save you the hassle an' grief you get when the man does it plus your life won't end up revolving around the job at hand. Out kitchen has looked like a bomb's hit it this past week 'cause of all me father's DIY shit hanging around. An' god forbid if you try tidying it up you get shouted at. Yeah, me father's ended up spending more money getting all the shit he apparently needed for this job an' we still had to get the plumber in. So, what money have we saved?

So yeah, we finally have a nice new sink in. First thing me mam did, she turned the water on, put the plug in, chucked in a dish cloth an' some washing up liquid an' shouted "I GOT FUCKING WATER AN' BUBBLES NOW!"