Victoria Day. We came, we opened, we went home.

It may be worth noting that Canada is the last country in the British Commonwealth that still celebrates the birthday of our beloved Queen Victoria. I rather like living in the past. As you know, Victoria Day weekend is when we open up the cottage. It's usually chilly, often snows, and rarely pleasant, but Canadians long ago chose this day as the day Dad puts on his shorts and wears nothing but shorts until Thanksgiving, when the old shack is boarded and shuttered and left to snooze through another dim winter. The Spring shores of Lake Kasshabog ring with the delighted shrieks of children driven into the water by dear old Dad for their annual opening day swim. Since we are only expatriates, we don't have to do that. We will motor across, pull the place together and get home. In a few weeks the actual warm weather will commence and we shall revel in it. Leave the proud traditions to those Crazy Canucks, those hardy voyageurs who can't reconcile the calendar with a weather report. Tomorrow we load the noble SAAB to the side boards and trek North, cowering under heightened aircraft traffic surveillance and the certain presence of an OPP radar trap just over every hill. Just as well, Vic Day is the beginning of the annual culling of the stupid. Every weekend the warrior drivers die in shoals of drunken cottage bound or home bound youth, taking with them whatever gets in their way. Belted and wary, we take the back roads, the slow lanes and survive. As usual we spent more time on the road than we did at Rebel. It was raining and a chill hung in the air. Our first anxious looks about revealed no trees uprooted, in fact very few fallen branches for a change. The water is high, but the cabin and boat house are dry. No mice. And no water. Well, technically there is water. But it's full of black, scaly gunk. Clouds of little black flakes spatter the sinks and clog the aereators. The pump runs short-cycled. Thoughts of strangling Ray, who puts in the water every year, have become an integral part of the opening up routine. It's finally sunk into my feeble old brain that Ray is a man who does exactly as he is asked. When asked to put the water in he does that and only that. It's never occurred to me to ask him to see that clear water runs freely through the pipes, and that the hot water tank does not cough up black billows of crud. Ray puts in the water and moves along to the next place, never pausing to see if the system actually works. His bill comes in the mail, I send him a cheque and then do what's necessary through the season to correct the annual oversights. I stop short of actually reprimanding Ray because I'm not his boss. According to the laws of the North, he is my appointed caretaker. Nobody asked me if I wanted Ray, I was passed along to him by our beloved old Jim McTaggart. Prior to that, we were handed to Jim by a man named Zolt. That's how it is around here, we are their people. They are responsible for us, but not to us. And If I'm not careful Ray will stop coming to fix things when I need him. What's wrong with this picture? Brace yourselves, after long consideration of the logistics of getting a plumber out to Rebel's Isle to resolve the water issue, I've decided to study up and see if I can do it myself. I shall now ask the rhetorical and jinxing question; …how hard can it be? STAGE NOTE: (Skies blacken, distant thunder rumbles from beyond the Blue Mountains; birds shriek and dark wings beat the air) MUSIC: (Loud crashing organ notes, volume full up) CUT TO MOURNFUL COUNTRY GRAVE YARD, ECU GRAVE. EARTH STIRS, AND BONY HAND CLAWS FREE, REACHES TOWARD LENS. CUT TO WIDE SHOT OF ISLAND, DARK PRESENCE HOVERING ABOVE. FADE TO MOONLESS NIGHT. I have all ready figured out that the hot water tank is toast. Rusty on the outside, it was a second hand tank when Jim McTaggart installed it twenty years ago. My research reveals that the life expectancy of a tank indoors is no more than twenty years. There is no data on one that spent its life sitting on the ground under a cabin, but I think this one has been living on borrowed time. Searching for a replacement I find there is a store out on the Queensway promisingly named Cottage Water Supply where I will go for instruction and parts. The short cycling of the pump indicates either the pressure switch needs adjusting, or the air pressure in the pressure tank (what a pressure-packed sentence!) needs adjusting, or both. Again, how hard can it be? (THUNDER-CLAP) I've found detailed instructions on how to do it on the internet, and I expect I'll get more from the helpful folks at Cottage Water Supply. (It turned out that Cottage Water Supply was about big installations, but the owner was generous with his advice, namely, get to a hardware store) The only truly daunting aspect to me is the actual connecting of the parts. I have a dismal record in such endeavors. Plumbing, as you know can be a humbling experience. You connect a fitting and it either works, or it sprays water all over. But, hey, I can always call a plumber. (TRUMPETS, SOUNDS OF GALLOPING HOOFS) (SFX FADE) Yes, my friends, I installed a new water tank last weekend and it works! But it also sprays water everywhere from five of the nine joints. Please laugh with me. We have hot water to shower and wash dishes. The pump now cycles according to pre-set norms. But, there's this thing about hose couplings that don't just leak; they spray. Saturday began innocently enough. On the way to the cottage I stopped in at the Lakefield Home Hardware and collared an intelligent looking person in a red shirt, and he was as helpful as anyone could hope for, but his advice was reliant on my information. "It's a three-quarter hose system, I think. Yep that's the right size." We proceeded to spec out the system and purchase the necessary parts. There are a lot of necessary parts. By the time I got all that stuff to the Island I was fried. Dragging the new tank from the boat to the cottage was exercise enough for one day. Tomorrow, I said, I will begin afresh to install the new hot water tank. That evening we dined on the finest that Weber can provide. Annie's mango and avacado salza graced some slightly over cooked skirt steak and perfectly done sweet potatoes and yams with lime butter and red pepper basting. The evening featured a wonderful game of Scrabble in which Annie could draw nothing useful and I won in a runaway. I had the pleasure of hearing her wailing outrage over the purely bad luck of the draw, which has brought me low so many times. I was, of course, sporty about it as I proceeded to drive my worthy opponent into the ground. Dawn came and blessed all cottagers everywhere. Warm air and glassy flat water; fragrant brews out on the coffee rocks dock. Hot sun on bare limbs. Now, getting down to the work, I discover that I had guessed wrong. It's not 3/4" hose, it's 1/2". Darn. Well, Annie, we're going to Lakefield. Got to replace all these parts. While we're there we can get a real good breakfast at Debbie's Kawartha Diner. Best burger in town. We wanted eggs, but never mind. Entering the Home Hardware with my corporate yellow bag in hand I was met by my good helper of the day before. He noted the bag and remarked, "This can't be good news." I replied, "It's half inch, not three-quarter." This was the source of much mirth in the plumbing supply department. Smirks and snickers from behind the stacks. I realized then that I was among my brothers. Their laughter was sympathetic. None of us gets away with trying to do our own plumbing. My announcement was life affirming to all of those guys. "Hi, my name is Paul, and I'm a do it yourself plumber. I'm here to surrender myself to a higher power" All reply in unison: "Hi Paul!" So, the parts are exchanged, and I should note that something didn't seem right but I appeared to have another full bag of stuff I'd need, so I didn't question the transaction. Besides I got seven dollars back on the exchange. So, back to the marina, into the boat, over the waves, and down to business I got. Dismantling the old system went so easily it's not worth discussing. An hour of cutting and unscrewing and some brute force had a rusty old water tank and several soldered parts lying on its side away from the scene of the job. I turned to installing the bits and pieces on the new water tank. What joy, it was working. One piece went into another, all was coming together until I realized I seemed to be missing four parts. Darn. In the flurry at the cash desk the lady had returned parts I had actually meant to purchase. Four pieces of plastic stood between me and a completed installation. So, back to the boat, off to the marina. Tie up the boat. Avoid further discussion with Mike and Murray. Into the car, off to Lakefield. Lakefield is 1/2 hour down the road. It's 2:30, the hardware closes at 4, so this is my last trip no matter what happens. I knew just what I was looking for. All I had to do was find it. I avoided the helpful fellow in the red shirt. Somewhere in the bottom bin of plastic plumbing parts was the four pieces I needed. I was down on my knees before the bin, searching, when a customer stepped past giving me a quizzical look. "I am praying to the plumbing god" I said. "Have your prayers been answered? "No, she is a harsh deity." I bought my parts and returned to Rebel. The sun was getting low by now, but I felt I had it licked. One piece went into another. The wise old woman of Millage's Plumbing supply had told me to use boiling water on the joints to soften the hose and give the clamps a better fit. I used the boiling water; I wrenched the clamps tight. I stepped back and marveled at what I'd done in only seven hours. Nine new joints. A fresh new tank. A clear understanding of my 30-50 psi system. Everything tightly clamped, ready for the test. I went inside and opened the hot water taps, and turned on the pump. Water flowed. Every tap worked. I turned on the hot water switch. Soon hot water flowed everywhere it was required. "It works, Annie!" "It works!", she said, rejoicing, "What’s that noise?" After a brief moment of denial I went outside to inspect my installation. Well, it works, but water is spraying in every direction. Fully half the joints are spurting spray. Even joints I'd not done anything to were spraying merrily about. It's 6PM Sunday. Time to go home. I shut it down, we close up; we load the boat and motor across. Driving home, Annie breaks the silence, “So what are you going to do?” “I’m going to call Ray.”