Drains, springs and toads..

That was the story today!
Our man with the sludge gulper came to drain the septic tank so we could rid the outlet pipe. But.. No one had ever seen anything like it.. An absolute gusher of a water spout which promptly filled the tank back up!
A little bit of background- our house is named after the many wells that were around here but are now all capped. Well.. (Sorry) .. Although capped, the underground spring is very much still there! All the rain this winter has filled all the springs to bursting and the soak away was clogged with mud and wasn't getting the water away fast enough so had backed up. My wonderful neighbour has dug trenches looking for the collapsed pipes, and tirelessly got to the bottom of the problem and is dedicating the weekend to hiring a digger to increase the length of our stream back up to the soak away (I shall have another bridge over and a reed bed for filtration).
His partner came over and we had a glass (bottle) of wine while we watched and put the world to rights!! I must say watching men digging is very thirsty work!! (He had a beer - we didn't neglect him!!)
Hubby is in Wembley at the football and as we're in Twickenham tomorrow for the rugby, he's staying there overnight. I can sleep like a starfish tonight! ;-)