TIM-BERRRRRR!

When we moved into our place, just over a year ago, we had barely unpacked and settled in, when we noticed some significant issues developing in our bathroom. Toilet issues. Yes, the worst kind of issues one can have in the bathroom. So here we were, three weeks into our brand new home and up to our armpits in... well... crap! It was a Friday. Our big Angus had the most severe dose of croup he had EVER experienced the night before. So bad that I ended up taking him to the Children's Hospital in the wee hours, just to make sure it was nothing more serious. Really unfortunate timing all round.


Well, plumber was called. Inspections were done (after finally locating our pipes, which incidentally are connected to a 'party line' and travel through our neighbours yard... who knew this was so common in terrace style living? Not this little black duck, evidently). The long and short of it was we had some major M-A-J-O-R damage to our pipes, caused by none other than the plethora of trees in our yard and neighbouring yards. How, one might ask, does a tiny terrace house with equally small courtyard have a tree problem? It's amazing, but we do.


The man-child plumber was sympathetic (as much as a man-child plumber can be) and gave me options on how we might attempt to 'appease' our problem. Our (quoted) $5000 problem as it were. While in the interim, employed a vicious sounding root cutter contraption to clear our pipes (and our neighbours), to get the facilities back in working order. Having just purchased a new home, we decided to make do and hold out on spending a small fortune on the fix up (not to mention avoid having our beautiful little courtyard dug up in the process).


So, fast forward 9 months. I'm 36 weeks pregnant with Felix and joy of joys, the toilet starts giving all the tell tale blockage signs, much like before. This time however, the root cutter just wasn't going to... well... cut it. The mammoth job that we avoided and had kept putting off came to bite us on the proverbial backside and $4200 later, we were able to use our facilities once again. It was at that point we decided one of the main culprits had to GO.


My Dad insisted on helping us get rid of the offending tree (right near our back door). Bless him. At nearly 73 years of age, scaling up our fence, teetering on the edge as he lopped branch after branch to the ground below him, because as he will tell you, he can! (Sheesh, that wasn't half stressful to watch... but that's Dad, forever taking charge).


Today, one of my lovely older brothers stopped by to remove the thick part of the trunk and slice it into manageable, bin size pieces... much to Angus' complete fascination and rapture. It was ALL about the bins to him and my word he did a tremendous job of helping pack that green waste bin tight.


Can't say I'm disappointed with the extra sunlight OR the reduction in leaves descending onto our pavers... and with fingers crossed I'm hoping our plumbing costs may diminish somewhat from here on in also.