What a Shower

News from our furthest colony!  My correspondent informed me in tones of woe that her hot water heater had broken down.  Frankly I was astonished.

"Do you have running water in Tasmania?" I asked mentally elevating Tasmania up a notch or two in my scale of civilised countries.

"Every time it rains," she confirmed proudly.  And, until recently a small miracle of modern technology had converted some of that water into a somewhat warmer form of itself so that my correspondent and assorted family members and guests could shower themselves without freezing quite solid.  Sadly, technology had now apparently failed her.

My correspondent was, however, suspiciously evasive when it came to describing what had actually gone wrong.  After suffering through a serious of convoluted excuses that went nowhere I cut to the chase,

"You were using it to make moonshine weren't you?"

"No!" cried my correspondent, outraged.

"Yes," interrupted my Belarussian tech support who then went on to inform my correspondent that her latest consignment was overdue.

Feeling that some moral guidance was necessary I read my correspondent a long sermon on the evils of home made alcohol and the devastating social effects it could have.  My tech support didn't help by pointing out that if her latest consignment wasn't in Minsk before the end of the month there would be some pretty devastating social effects anyway.  Nobody should have to face their family at Christmas completely sober.  On this, at least, we all agreed.

My correspondent attempted to play for sympathy by pointing out that cold showers in Tasmania were equivalent to swimming in the oceans around the island.  Slightly baffled I asked who on earth was crazy enough to go ocean swimming around Tasmania.  My correspondent pointed out (somewhat self righteously in my opinion) that she was.  She piled on the sympathy play by pointing out the risks she ran disporting herself in Tasmania's frozen, shark infested waters.  Which is absolute rubbish because sharks, being smarter than humans, have flocked to the warmer waters around northern Australia (which from Tasmania's perspective means pretty much any part of Australia) and have left the salt flavoured icy slurry which surrounds Tasmania to those humans who haven't the sense to go indoors.  If a shark takes a human in Tasmania it's probably only because they need help installing a hot water system.

However the sharks are going to have to wait as my correspondent has first claim on Tasmania's plumber.  Fortunately the hot water has gone down in Summer when the weather in Tasmania means that hot water is merely desirable rather than essential to life and my correspondent is confident that by the time the February snows arrive she will once again have a stream of luke warm water trickling from an exposed pipe in her bathroom.

This is fortunate as my correspondent has come down with an acute attack of relatives.  Blood kin she thought were safely exiled to the far corners of the civilised world have suddenly turned up and are giving every indication of staying for the duration.  Strangely they're expecting hot showers.