Meanwhile in the real world ... →[More:]I am gladder than I could ever be that I adopt a cautious approach to life in certain respects.

A few years ago when our boiler finally gave up the ghost and died, leaving us without hot water and heating on New Year's Eve, and costing us £1,500 for a new one, I decided that I would not leave myself vulnerable like that again.

So when the 5-year warranty ran out (by which time I was living alone with no man to do anything vaguely DIY-ish) I took out two insurance policies - one to cover the central heating and the other to cover plumbing and drainage problems. About £20 a month for both policies. Most major breakdowns and repairs are covered, as well as an annual boiler service.

Anyhoo, a day or so ago my toilet wasn't flushing right, it would fill right up to the rim, almost to overflowing, and then eventually would drain to almost no water in the bowl.

When I got home this evening I phoned the insurers and told them my toilet was blocked. I'm working from home tomorrow and expected someone to come out then. But they said someone would call me within an hour, which he did, and the guy said he'd be round an hour after that.

Turns out it wasn't the toilet at all, but the soilpipe (the drain from the toilet into the main sewer) which was blocked. It needed 'rodding' with these long flexible pipes, similar to the things a chimney sweeper uses, that screw together.

Well, it was a nasty, very stinky, messy job which the guy did with good grace - he'd been told it was a 'leaky toilet' by the insurers and he only phoned me to fix a time and get directions, so he wasn't exactly expecting to be poking around in raw sewage when he turned up at the door.

But I tell you, when he levered off the drain cover ... well, there isn't enough money in the world you could pay me to do that job.

Plumbers of the world, I salute you.

Oh, and it's all covered by the insurance, I just pay my £20 a month or whatever it is, which I don't miss, and there's no big shock of a bill. I'd have been faced with a bill of about ten times that amount if I'd had to call out Dyno-Rod.

*grabs book, disappears to loo*