I have bought the diverter kits and taps...

Warning: the thousand eleven words this picture says are much more fun than what's below, which really should be ignored.

Water Butt One (green, blipped) - the previous tap has been removed because it leaked. All around where the tap was is tape and ossified glue that was put there to try to stop it leaking. There is a hole the right size at the top into which I could attach the inlet kit.

Water Butt Two (blue) - the brass tap is, absurdly, half way up. I removed it easily. It is now a spare. Success. The inlet is a stuck-fast ¾" copper pipe that is too large for the flexible hose that came with the downpipe diverter I bought. I spent far too much time trying to sandpaper/file the inside of the inlet hose to make it fit. Fail. I then spent far too much time trying to remove the badly sized copper inlet. I sprayed it with WD40. I found my huge plumbing spanners and tried to loosen the nuts. Fail again.  

Water Butt Three (brown) - the tap is at the bottom as it should be but it is broken. I could replace it if my arms were a metre long. The inlet would work with the diverter.

I had allocated water butts one and two, to be linked, to downpipe A, and water butt three to downpipe B

I spent far too much time trying to work out whether to link them at the top, or the bottom, or using the hole in the middle of Water Butt One. I put them in different orders next to the downpipe to try to work out possible configurations. 

After far too much more time failing to decide what to put where and how, I was just about to scrape and sand off the tape and glue on this water butt when I spotted hairline cracks all around the base. I put in some water and it didn't leak but I thought it couldn't be that long until it did.

So I took this picture to advertise a leaky water butt on Freegle. I found myself writing in my draft ad that it could be cut down to make a tree tub (five years ago I advertised on Freegle for leaky water butts that I could cut down for my grafted apple trees, and I still shudder at the resultant disastrous bike trip). 

Um, yes. Well I could cut it down to make a plant tub.

So the successful bit of my frustrating afternoon was getting out the electric saw and turning this butt into a plant tub. (The top bit will go out with the rubbish in due course.) 

While I had the saw out, I cut up my last pallet for disposal. So I ended up completing a to-do list I hadn't even envisaged.

In frustration at the one I'd planned and not achieved, I clobbered the stuck-hard ¾" copper pipe with a plumbing hammer as I was putting it away. There was a slight tremor. And the nuts came undone easily by hand. Oh, sing the praises of matured WD40.

So tomorrow is Water Butt Day Two.

Same water butts, different problems, five years ago.