I am getting really annoyed.

The saga of Irish Water continues and I swear they are doing everything in their power to thwart me at every move.

First they cam out and buried a little plastic box out on the lane.  They left that length of blue pipe sticking out of the ground which I promptly stuck in the hedge and has now vanished almost completely under a mass of brambles, long grass and nettles.  The neighbours didn't have any hedging so as you drive up the lane you see these lengths of blue pipe, like hoses on Viagra all sticking up outside each house.

There was little I could do about the box as it was outside my gate, so I just filled it with dog shit and left it.

A year later they came back and dug up the box [unfortunately without opening it] and replaced it with a metal box.  They never mentioned the blue pipe and never called in so I didn't have a chance to fight with them then either.  They did however put a nice smooth patch of tarmac around the box and that is now the only smooth bit of the lane.  I filled that box with dog shit and went about my business.

I have been waiting in anticipation for my bill to arrive.  They announced with a big fanfare that they would be posting them all out in April, but April has come and gone and still no bill.  How the fuck can I ignore a bill if they don't send me one?  I swear this is a new tactic – if they don't send us the bills then we can't refuse to pay.  Sneaky!

Now I see they have thwarted me again.  They have announced that defaulters won't be sent to prison.  Fuck!  I was looking forward to my day in court and was really looking forward to seeing all my old friends in Wheatfield Prison.  I have happy memories of that place. 

For the last few weeks I have had a leak.  I am of course referring to the household plumbing and not some geriatric issue.  The toilet cistern has been overflowing and the really irritating thing about that is that they never connected my meter.  If they had, I would have racked up an enormous bill which would have given me much greater pleasure when I refused to pay it.  I reckon on at least one Olympic Sized Swimming Pool has gone down the drain [Irish Water measure all leakages in terms of Olympic Sized Swimming Pools.  It must be some new EU measure of volume?  The OSSP?].

Jones-the-Pipe was around yesterday doing another job and he fixed the cistern while he was at it.  The leak has stopped.

There was no point in leaving it if I'm not being billed for it?