27th November 2012 - On leeks and Leaks

After the country has suffered some of the heaviest rains and storms, and flooding warnings reaching the highest level-life threatening storms, it was perhaps understandable that as I lay in bed yesterday morning, I got the distinct impression of dampness...... Now, before the mind goes wandering off into inappropriate directions, and to be fair my mind wandered a little in the immediate aftermath, after all I had not been imbibing of noxious alcoholic beverages the night before, and have no history of any lack of responsibility in the nether regions, but it was clearly wet in the bed. Looking to the ceiling, there was no sign of any drops of water cascading down onto the coverlets, which was also not surprising as there are no water pipes above the bedroom, and there is another bedroom between the roof and the ceiling...

Worse still, it seemed to be wet only where I was sleeping... Now this may seem to have taken a few minutes, but the reality was that all these thoughts went through my mind in that brief moment that you have where you transform from a heavy sleep into total awake - and also levitate from the bed and stand looking at the silhouette outlined upon the bed - like a chalk print at a murder scene.

I suppose it is best to mention at this stage that I sleep upon a water bed - and have done so for countless years. No, not one of those bright sixties water filled li-lo's that used to appear in tame B scene romps, but rather a state of the art ( well 25 years ago) frame contained, floatation chambered, heated water bed. And it seemed it had sprung a leak!!!

Of course, one of the finest things about a water bed is that it contours automatically, and if there is more than one person in the bed, it equalises nicely to fit the individual weights of the sleepers. Thus,being the heavier of the sleepers, the mattress sinks just that small amount lower around my torso, allowing a slow trickle to form in the impression.

Well I can't complain really, spending the next few hours looking through the house for the repair kit, one always arrives with a waterbed, we worked out that the last replacement mattress had been bought back in 2005, giving us 8 years undisturbed rest, but no sign of the repair kit....  Also no sign of the leak!! It had to be a small leak, as it required two people to be on the bed  to push a drop of water out, and it took 8 hours of steady drip to dampen only one indentation in the bed...  A needle in a haystack if you wish to mix your metaphors...

So, where do you find a good repairer for water beds in Wales???   We originally bought the bed from Leeks at Crosshands, when they decided to specialise in such things, and the sales pitch of "Your normal mattress starts failing the day you put it on the bed - and needs replacing after only a couple of years as the supports inside start to breakdown - but your water bed mattress will go on for ever (less leaks of course)...
Your normal mattress gets filled with all the detritus of  the sleepers, whereas the water bed is impervious....."
So we went for the Leek Special, and bought . Strangely for all those years we have never had a leak!

Of course in 2005, the flotation chambers were beginning to rot inside, and the bed was losing its firmness, and when we moved the bed into another bedroom, it did not really make the journey well, so we splashed out ( no pun intended) on the 2005 replacement ...  I have the bill, it was £179 plus carriage...

So not being able to find the leak we decided to research a replacement mattress - and interestingly found that the cost was the same - but with free carriage!!!  A sign of the times that this one area of lifestyle has not increased in price over the years....  So with a credit card payment we can look forward to a replacement without Leaks ... and then we found the hole in the mattress!!!

But still no repair kit...   A good excuse to turn over the bedroom, and in the drawers I found my medals from the Police, some cufflinks I forgot I had, and ££2.27p in loose change..  but no repair outfit....
But in the living room, in amongst all the accumulated "Stuff" that finds its way into various drawers and shelves, there was a pristine, unopened, universal bicycle repair outfit!!!!  Well, it was not a water bed repair kit, but there are some similarities in the form of rubber tube/lining,  both require a little roughening around the are of repair, apply some of the solvent glue, add a rubber match and grate the chalk over the top to take away all extra glue......  Yup - seemed to be the same process......

So, I did not write the blog yesterday, we spent most of the time running around searching the house.. and then with some trepidation, attempted another night of sleep......
I am pleased to report that the bed stayed dry... I know I sound like a proud parent of a child who has managed to go the night without pampers - but if the repair holds then when the new mattress arrives we can store it for our move to the next house - we know from the past that moving a water bed is not easy!!!

So while the weather remains poor across Wales, at last in one part of Llanelli it is dry....
Also - if your waterbed has problems....   I know of a good repair service - we also do bikes!!