Thank God for elves!’

Now I know that you’ll be looking somewhat askance as you read that last sentence, so I had better explain.

You see the elves I am talking about have absolutely nothing to do with those airy fairy creatures who inhabit the pages of children’s story books. These are the local Bridgford elves who are much more practical. In fact they are a darned sight more useful than any small shoe repairing creature who works only at night and demands payment in milk and honey or is it gold.

I am sure that there is an economy somewhere in Europe that benefits hugely from such creatures, but we Brits obviously prefer to deal with our own kind and not Gnomes or Elves or, worse still damned Frogs!

But let’s forget all the hoo ha of the current economic crisis that is bedevilling Europe and focus on where things are real and productive – back here in Nottingham!

It all began some time ago when one of the toilets started to play up. First of all it would sometimes flush quite happily but now and then it would only attempt a half hearted flush and so you would have to repeat the process to make sure that everything was sent on its way to the great sewer system somewhere else!

As you may well know I am not the slightest bit technical or handy and as far as I am concerned the inner workings of toilets and sewage in general is something I am happy to remain ignorant about. However, as we all know, things never stay the same. Over time the flushing became a work of art. You had to know just how to push the handle in order to get the full effect or else the toilet just didn’t work as intended.

Then to make matters even worse the cistern would happily fill itself and carry on letting in water without stopping as it should. By now Da Boss was a tad unhappy with the whole situation and I was tasked with “Fixing it”

You can imagine my despondency at this ultimatum. I am quite happy to do almost anything that doesn’t involve actual work. If you want important topics to be discussed at length then I’m your man, but when it comes to minor practical matters like getting a new porch light that actually works then you really do need to look elsewhere.

Unless, of course, if you are Da Boss. In that case you simply make my life more and more uncomfortable until I can stand it no longer and set about trying to find someone who can do0 practical stuff.

I have tried doing it myself, but the results have been so painful to all that I am basically banned from quite a lot of things – especially anything that involves water!

This is where the elves came to the rescue and quite honestly I am absolutely delighted to find a particularly handy elf called Simon. He may well be a software engineer of the first class sort, but that is of no interest to me. It is his skill ability and sheer logical handiness that have impressed me to the nth degree!

He turned up to deal with the overflowing cistern having first had me go and purchase the right sort of replacement valve thingy. That was all sorted and made good within half an hour and he then asked me about the lack of syphon efficiency.

I stared at him because he was clearly speaking a language that I didn’t understand. Yes, I knew what individual words meant. It was just the particular combination and way he was using them that made absolutely NO SENSE AT ALL to me.

My rather stupefied and stunned look told Simon that he was asking questions well above my pay grade, so he took matters into his own hands and started twiddling and tweaking inside the cistern. Within two minutes he stepped back, gave the flush handle the tiniest of pushes and Voila – the darned thing worked perfectly.

No more would I have to pump away nine or ten times to get the most grudging of results flush-wise. Now even the tiniest of tots could simply wash away all evidence of their visit to the toilet. My life was suddenly much rosier and brighter than before.

I had not only solved the imminent water disaster but also the long standing flush problem with just one elf! Even better, Simon is coming back to fix that porch light I mentioned in passing. The back door will soon be a much more secure system once again, of this I am completely confident – Long live the Elves of West Bridgford.

And what do I have to do to benefit from these Elves? I simply have to rub a few people’s backs or necks or feet. Something I thoroughly enjoy doing and which is as rewarding to me as fixing a cistern is to my current tip top elf – Simon!

That's it for now

Mike