h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Those of you eagerly following my NaJoPoMo ramblings will have noticed that I've touched on some of the darker and seedier aspects of Cyprus living in recent days. Today I wish to share with you the dirty side. Filthy dirty.

We've had quite a lot of torrential rain over the last 72 hours which is unusual for this time of year. In between the downpours, my morning was spent on the roof investigating various sources of water ingress; I'm pleased to report that the recent extension and our lovely new roof is faring rather well - I could only identify three points of entry. The old structure is a different matter altogether though.

At lunchtime, my wife enquired as to the whereabouts of her saucepans, bread, cake and roasting tins. I reluctantly relinquished the turkey roaster, but I was forced to replace it with an ice-cream container in order to mop up the drips. I'll apply a big bucket, or dustbin, if it becomes necessary.

While on the roof, I noticed a particularly bad smell blowing westerly from the rear of the estate. Upon examination, I discovered that the rains had overcome the cesspit - the ground water was higher than the capping plinth - and effluent was heading north toward the bamboo plantation. I thought this strange, because I've never seen this phenomenon before, but the problem was immediately obvious.

There's no mains drainage in Cyprus - sorry, I'm fibbing again - there's lots of mains drainage in Cyprus, most having been installed in the last five years. The country is benefiting from multi-million-Euro EU grants to provide such luxury and kilometre after kilometre of roadways, paths, driveways and gardens have been excavated to fit the infrastructure. There is only one small problem; no one thought to build the sewage processing plants, so all those lovely pipes lay empty and everyone continues to rely on individual methods of sanitation. As mentioned, ours is a cesspit, borderline illegal and currently the bane of my life.

Most houses utilise septic tanks. These personal processing units take the effluent and break it down via bacteria in a multi-stage process. Grey water then enters a soak away and is dissipated into the ground. It's a nice system.

Older wrecks, such as ours, have the pits. When you flush the toilet, off everything goes down a pipe and then exits into a big hole in the ground. If you are eating healthily, the solids will sink to the bottom and the liquid content will leach into the surrounding soil via purging holes. A poor diet will permit nastiness to float on the surface and attempt to escape, again, via the outlets. It's a bad system. In fact, it's especially bad because Cyprus relies heavily on the underground water table in times of drought. I don't much relish drinking the tap water when I know it has likely been contaminated by my own and my neighbours bowel discharges.

I'll need to get the builders back tomorrow. I told them when they back-filled the excavation spoil that it would cause problems with the drains, but they knew better.

I will, tomorrow, quite literally rub their noses in it.

What's the chances of a *very* kind editorial type person changing the journal title from '17' to '18'?

I hate making mistakes like that - this will now haunt me all night.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

As at matter of curiosity DDD- will you be making tea for your builders?

The thought had never crossed my mind Mr. Moore. But now you have suggested it, I have instructed my wife to have the urn boiling in preparation for their visit.

Revenge will be sweet.

Or maybe slightly on the chewy side.

I need to thank a very kind person for changing the title, but I'm not sure who.

Whoever you are, I am *extremely* grateful.

That does sound like something truly disgusting.

Hope the builders will fix it.