Water, water everywhere

So (I've always been reticent about starting posts with the word "So", but unfortunately this is one of those occasions) I get home from Bangkok at 7.30 this morning, and all the floor tiles and some carpets are soaking wet. Walls and ceiling are clean and dry, washing machine and taps OK, water tank and boiler not leaking, nothing electrical affected, books 99.9% OK. I suspect a burst water pipe under ma hoose. If I called Thames Water, would they send del_c?

Swimming to Brazil

Domestic flooding not as serious as I at first feared. Our ace local emergency plumber, who deserves the name Harry Tuttle though he looks nothing like Robert deNiro, has found a hole the diameter of a small nail in the back of the water heater, and which had been leaking near the back of the heater's cupboard, thence onto the floor outside. No excavation required, just a new big heater at the cost of several hundred quid plus labour, plus complete replacement of all floor tiles in the hall. Will be checking the fine print of my home insurance to see if this is covered or, as is likely for domestic water damage, not.

Floors still soaking wet, house already beginning to smell bad, mosquitos and dragonflies everywhere, amoebic dysentery discovered, no hot water ’til next week. Time to leave the country again, surely.