I finally found what I'm looking for.

Anyone who follows my journal on a semi regular basis will know that since we moved in to our new flat we've been having a lot of problems with the boiler and have been unable to fix them due to having about 0.5 bar of water pressure and needing at least 1 bar to do anything with it.

Well today a combination of my intellegence and the boy's patience/strength we found the stopcock. We went back on the loft. This time I at least knew which of three pipes was the water mains, so I followed it along until it disappeared again. Have you ever tried pacing out a distance along a beam that is narrower than your shoes with nothing to support yourself with? It reminded me of being on the balance beam at school only this time if you fell there wasn't crash mats, only wooden joists and a ten foot drop if you fell through the ceiling!

Once back in the flat I paced out the distance from the pipe and found it ran down within the wall in the bathroom. Eventually I found a tile that was held in place by silicon sealer rather than grout. It had to be behind there. After digging out the sealant and it not shifting, I was all ready to smash the tile with a hammer but The Boy persisted and we found the tap.

Realising it would go less than a quarter turn in one direction we assumed it was nearly fully open so proceeded to start turning the tap off. Guess what happened? The water pressure got stronger and stronger! Someone had set the tap to be almost completely off.

Finally we can get someone in to quote on the boiler, our washing machine and dishwasher will work properly and it won't take a couple of hours of noisy water running to refill the tank after a bath. So very happy.

Only downside to the day is interlink haven't delivered my parcel as they have "adverse weather conditions" at the depot. They better get it here before the weekend!