The old way

When we first moved to Feorlean our water came from a private supply - a rather grand name for a tank on the hillside which was fed from a stream.

Most people think that such supplies are a thing of the past but we didn't go onto the water main until around 2009 , and only then because there was a decision to try and supply piped water to every school which meant a pipe had to be laid between  Cointraive and Glendaruel  which passed the  end of our track.  

There are are  quite a number of private supplies remaining all across the Highlands and I used to have Ministerial responsibility for them when I had the Environment brief.  Some serve small communities, as in Bridge of Orchy  in my constituency which had very severe problems with the system some years ago. 

We have had the odd problem with the main (such as a major disruption in the winter of 2010/11 which I blipped) but it is vastly more convenient than our previous arrangement which required us to climb the hill and try and clear the pipe into the tank whenever there was a spate of water in the stream which brought down lots of silt or dislodged the intake and produced air locks.

The tanks and intake are still in place because the water goes to a couple of holiday caravans closer to the road as well as into our pond and Cathleen's polytunnel.   It is the latter that forced us to try and repair the system today as the pressure in the hose has been falling off and this weekend there was virtually no flow.

The  polytunnel doesn't need watered much at present but we though it best to get it sorted and after a lot of effort we managed to do so.  The blue pipe was partially blocked and we got very muddy clearing it , but it did give me a chance to take this view of the stream, the pipes  (old and new) and Feorlean itself (or at least part of the roof).