Let’s face it – being at work is rubbish!  That’s why they have to pay you to go.

I feel justified in saying that being a mummy is the best job in the world.  Being a self-employed mummy is even better – as you don’t have to go to a place of work, with all the stress and groan-factor that comes with it (#RatherBeOnMaternityLeave!) even if it means that sometimes you don’t get paid.  Fair trade-off I’d say.

Prior to becoming a mummy I was working at a medium-sized business – the sort that doesn’t have its own facilities or HR department so that when the brown and sticky hits the fan you end up sorting it out yourself at the expense of whatever was on your ridiculously long and irksome to-do list for that day.  (Of course as a mummy, you quickly get used to a very different sort of brown and sticky!)  One of the main problems of my former job (and there were many of them!) was that every time something broke in the building, you would end up having to drop everything to sort it out, which inevitably involved an unwanted and unwelcome departure from the comfort zone.  When reminiscing with relief about all of the things I REALLY don’t miss about my old job I feel truly thankful that I don’t have to deal with those sorts of problems any more.

Well, at least that’s what I thought… That’s because coinciding with my being self-employed, various things have started going wrong at home, and I seem to have earned the unofficial job title of Domestic Site Manager.  This statement of course requires some quantification – and it’s coming.  Which brings me unobviously on to the subject of flushable nappy liners!

Since my little boy was about two months old I have been using washable nappies on a purely part-time basis.

 I am not a Supermum.  We use them only at home, never overnight, and mostly because I was given a set by a family member.  I estimate that it probably saves the household about £50 a year and it makes me feel good because I know I’m stopping some nappies going into landfill.  The sad part of me also quite enjoys the extra challenge.  I was also using flushable liners (more expensive than basic liners but means that the brown and sticky lifts out easily and goes down the toilet, with the rest of the nappy straight in the bucket ready for the wash).  Job done.

His first washable nappy – he clearly loved it!

A few of you may have guessed where this is going – a jaunt into the realms of home emergency call outs and the joys of blocked drains.  And you wouldn’t be wrong.  But how we get there is via a series of unfortunate events which began randomly with an electrician doing some routine maintenance on my house.  Some of you will remember from part 1 the bit about being woken it the night by random burglar alarms?  Well, as it would transpire we had some electrics shorting in the house because of a junction box that was submerged in water (as indeed I’m sure happens in all houses!).  This had resulted from some eroded cement in the gully of a rainwater downpipe which meant that every time the weather went all Noah’s Ark we would end up with two inches of water under a particular part of the house (which explained, once diagnosed, the strange damp smell we were getting in that area after wet weather.  Nice!).  I duly called a plumber out to mend the compromised gulley, who on visiting the property to quote obligingly said he would also unblock the drain outside the kitchen sink which he noticed in passing (I had NOT noticed).  Happy days!  Or so I thought.

The gulley was fixed without incident, but the drain seemed to be resisting the efforts of the plumber, unphased by the horrible drain smell and up to his rubber-gloved armpit in drain water.  As an aside, said plumber, a father of three, and well used to the joys of children, told me an amusing story of how a customer once made him a cup of tea with breast milk in by mistake (which indeed begs the question as to what the breast milk was being stored in in the fridge?!?).  So skipping on from the strange and hilarious things that happen when babies are around, we arrive at the assessment of my house drains being completely blocked with drain water up to the manhole covers (and after lifting them overflowing and running down the hill onto the road in front of the house!  Double nice!).

Go Go Gadget hose pipe!

This is the point where I call my home insurer to arrange for a drain un-blocker to visit the property.  The advantage of having a baby here is that such visits tend to be expedited, and lo and behold the employee of a reputable drain-unblocking firm turned up at the house before the end of the day although not before it had got dark (what a great day at the office that must have been!).  His beady eye quickly honed in on what he thought was a baby wipe in the drain. Mortified that he would think that’s what I habitually put down toilets (I never would!) I had to own up to using flushable nappy liners for washable nappies, being made in the process to feel like a stupid and bad person.  I then had to endure his scornful lecture about how only toilet paper and human waste should go down toilets.  Now I should point out here that I have no cause and effect as to my drain being blocked because of the liners (further investigation pointed towards tree roots under the neighbour’s property as the cause) but I immediately discontinued their use and would urge all other parents reading this to do the same.  Put it this way, the merits of saving landfill aside, any financial saving of using washable nappies would be sadly outweighed by the expense of the drainage call-out if not insured (although most home insurance policies cover it, so don’t go paying out for additional home emergency cover without checking – you heard it here first!).

After the drains incident I thought that my spell of domestic disasters was over.  This was until I woke up one morning to discover an aged brick garden wall had collapsed overnight, inconveniently falling into our next door neighbour’s garden (I have an image in my mind of one of our cats scaling the wall in the night causing the thing to finally give way under the weight of fatty cat).  That day’s work was then disrupted in favour of making phone calls trying to get that issue sorted. And there’s nothing quite like embarking out into the freezing cold, blanketed baby in arms in order to discuss quotes with trades people (groan!).  Although I have found that the presence of a baby in the house is always a great excuse to stay inside in cold weather and just let them get on with it!  The small consolation here was the sympathy from the neighbour when I went round to assess the damage complete with baby in pushchair.

Back as I am in a blissful state of normality after the fixing of said problems (not without pain and suffering – and that’s just my bank balance!) I remain ever hopeful that bad luck really doesn’t come in threes (unless you first count the dodgy electrics/water under the house, in which case I’m safe!).  In the meantime just remember the moral of the story boys and girls – only toilet paper and human waste!

Written by Aimee Flower for her blog, Diary of a Mumpreneur.

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