Tilting...

I decided to decorate the room last. It would not have made sense to do it earlier. I made all the surfaces tilt a bit (except the ceiling, relying on gravity), so the dust could fall off by itself. Then I drilled a hole in the bottom corner for it all to escape, but the water came in, instead. This was not only a disappointment, but a design flaw, and one which – obviously – I had failed to address until it forced itself on my consciousness. I now had a tilting waterlogged room, but the thing which really annoyed me was the dust, which refused to budge. It almost made me give up.

However, though I may not be a great designer, I am not a quitter. So I opened the door and stepped out to get a different perspective on the problem, and to dry my feet. Unfortunately, I chose the door on the upper wall, and there was therefore quite a drop that for some reason I did not expect. In addition, there was a lot more water out there than I had been led to expect, and there was now no point in drying my feet as I was soaked through.

The position was compounded by the fact that the only other door (I had only allowed for two in the design) was opposite the one out of which I had just exited, and was therefore on what was the lower wall. This meant that not only did it catch on the ground as soon as an attempt was made to open it, but also a large amount of water splashed in and made things worse. On the plus side though, some of the dust was dissolved.

I had not allowed for a ladder, or indeed a second room in which to change. This meant that the tilting room was in fact going to have to be a studio flat. That being the case, I had my work cut out to finish it before dark. It was at this point that I made a further mistake. I had climbed back up and, in the door, which of course slammed shut like a trapdoor, and ejected me out into the body of the room. You will recall however that the floor was a tilting floor, and so I slid downwards and into the water. In the middle it was deeper than I am tall, so for a moment I was technically drowning. I did not panic though, and by cleverly bracing my legs against first the skirting boards, and then the walls above; I was able to edge myself above the water line and breathe. This felt like progress. I was however stuck with a few problems. Firstly, I had no pump to get rid of the water. Secondly, if I stoppered up the hole to stop water coming in, I had no hole through which the water could go out. Thirdly there was no obvious easily achieved way of getting out of the water, and I was beginning to shiver and my teeth to chatter.

I had a brainwave. I swam awkwardly to the mantelpiece and sat on it. Because it was at a bit of an angle I had to sit on the uppermost edge, which was uncomfortable, but better than drowning. Presently I was able to stand on this mantelpiece edge and lean against the wall. From there I was able to leap out and grab the central lampshade. I was now hanging almost parallel to the water and unfortunately, I let go of my grip and belly flopped back into the water. This was becoming a bit tiring. I scrabbled back up onto the mantelpiece again and launched myself once more. I had not planned what to do when I got there, so I wrapped my arms around the flex to anchor myself, and now I was able to survey the scene at my leisure, and make an appropriate plan.

Unfortunately, nothing suggested itself. There was just the drip, drip, drip of my clothes and a deepening gloom. The upper door opened with a squeak, and a hand came in to turn on the light. Just too late, I yelled not to switch it on. As I landed on my back in the water I was bathed in welcome light, and it was all my visitor could do not to fall in on top of me. She did not look too impressed, and in fairness, I could see why, up to a point. I mean, dinner did look a long way off. Still, it was nice to see her. I asked her to get me a hosepipe and a rope. When she returned, I asked her to pass me the rope. As I grabbed the end I must have yanked it, because the next thing I knew was that she had landed on top of me. Like an idiot, she had also let go of the hosepipe, and I compounded my problems by pointing this out.

I am not exactly sure of the next sequence of events, but when I surfaced, I seemed to be alone. I quickly fashioned a lariat out of the rope. The trouble is that it is not easy to swing the lariat when half of the arc is under water. After multiple attempts, by which time I had become quite dispirited, I managed to get a fixing on the door handle and pull myself up and out, clear of the water. I sat on the doorstep and wept. I think I was a bit emotional, and it was not helping, what with the water and all, so I forced myself to stop.

Now I know what you are thinking – all I had to do was give up on the idea of a tilting room, haul it back to upright, and the water would just run out the doors under gravity. Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. For example, the water having flowed out the doors might very well flow straight back in! My idea was to get a siphon going with the hosepipe out the top door, and as the water level dropped, reach down and block up the hole.

It was not easy to get the siphon going, I have to admit. And when after an almost lungful of dirty water I did to my amazement get it going, I suffered the disappointment of seeing the other end of the pipe poking above the water and the whole thing slow to a halt. I redoubled my efforts and although I had to swallow quite a lot of water, I got it going again. After an hour or so, when the water had been flowing well, it seemed to me that the level was not dropping and I was forced to concede that the water was running back in as fast as it was running out. There was nothing for it but to block up the hole.

Gripping my trusty Swiss penknife between my teeth I dived in headfirst. This was a double mistake in that it was not that big a room and I struck my head quite forcefully against the floorboards. This meant that the force of the impact made me temporarily loosen my grip on the penknife (as I said Aaaaargh!), which dropped away annoyingly, and in addition I was now not really in prime condition to tackle the hole. It would in theory have been better to block the hole from outside, but I had to remember that the room was in fact balancing on that corner, and was too heavy (especially when waterlogged!) for me to lift. Also, it was quite dark out there. I worked it out that if I dived in and held my breath under water while plugging the hole with my toe, with any luck the water level would drop in time to stop me drowning. Fortunately, it did. It was at this point of course that I realised that I had not closed the bottom door properly! And I’m the one who always bangs on about closing doors! I was able, from the corner where I was placed with my toe in the hole, to reach the door and slam it shut. It was not much of a slam because of the water, and something seemed to be stuck in the doorway, preventing it from shutting completely. I decided to concentrate on the hole.

I could now see the dawn coming up through the top door and this cheered me up. The water level was down to a paddling pool size and I could see that it was the penknife that was jamming the bottom door open. I was finding it quite hard to reach over to retrieve it as I had had to take off my shoe to get my toe to fit into the hole, and the whole foot seemed to have gone to sleep. Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day! I had not given much thought as to what to plug the hole with once I pulled out my toe. And of course, if I pulled out my toe, and went to look for something, the water would start to build up again. I wished that I had thought of that earlier.

In the end I managed to rescue the knife and use it to gouge out some plaster from the wall and from this I fashioned a plug. Finally, I was able to remove my toe from the hole and hop back up the now water-free room. I slammed both doors having climbed out in to morning sunshine. I realised, in the clear light of day, that the whole project was in need of reappraisal. Frankly, I should have walked away earlier.

© Dave Cuffe 2025

2002