Vincent and our well

Water causes problems too. Our well has been leaking. This is not a pretty round stone well with a lovely copper well head as one often sees in medieval villages, ours is a functional hole.   In the back wall.  Behind the downstairs washing tubs.

Filled with water that has to overflow. The overflow for the well is piped out into the pedestrian traffic (there are no roads up where we live, only paths). Since before we arrived the pedestrian path has been flooded with the overflow from our well.

It has been like this for months, and Anita has been beseeching the mayor, local dignitaries, and any bureaucrat who might listen, that this well needs attention.

This is not just an ordinary house well.  It looks to us as though water from further up the hill somehow collects in this well before it gets diverted further down hill to be used in roadside irrigation channels. Tomorrow, they say. We will be there tomorrow. But, this is the Mediterranean, and ‘tomorrow’ more often than not means ‘manana' and there is always another tomorrow.

Daily since we arrived we have been told that someone will turn up 'today' to fix the well. Sometimes someone does turn up. They look at it, scratch their chin and wander off in a babble of French. But, eh, the fixing has never happened. And, it was not until one of our dear neighbours slipped in the overflow slush the other day that Vincent, a plumber, and his mate, appeared, around dusk, to check out our well. Much noise and hilarity soon followed. Pete could not resist, so joined in the fray.

Vincent brought a pump to get rid of the overflow, but felt compelled to strip to his breeches, and personally accompany the pump down into the well, slithering his long bony body against the rough sides of the tiny well, shaped not unlike a chimney pipe. Down he went and on down, accompanied by lots of hoots, shouts and hoopla. Up came things, one by one. Things that may have been blocking the well.  

Stone upon stone, a bottle of wine still capped, more rocks, ancient broken bits of ceramicware, a beautiful whole old pot crazed and stained, more bottles of capped wine, many more, and more stones, more bottles of beer. And more wine. An endlessly satisfying treasure trove. Vincent, his mate, and Peter were in high hilarity: all in a jovial pirate heaven.

After they’d finished pumping the well, Vincent’s mate ripped off one of the wine stoppers, guzzled the wine to test it and pronounced it perfectly drinkable. 

So out slithered Vincent. He checked the well to find it behaving nicely, no longer spilling its excess all over the pedestrian path, then packed himself and his mate off, along with pump and pipes, and the remaining bottles of unopened rescued wine, heading off down the now dry hill path to while away a pleasant evening ahead. 

And for one night, and one night only, the well behaved beautifully. In the morning, emptied of all its weighted stones, ancient pots, and mysterious cache of nearly a dozen bottles of mature wine, the well began, again, to weep. Sloshing its watery excess all down the pedestrian path again.  And it is doing it still. As it ever was.

Vincent examining the problem

Rubble and detritus from our well

Looking down at our water overflow drenching the alley