joe bennett
From weeping tanks to Australian wines via sobbing war machines, a heartbroken woman and practical neighbours, our Southern correspondent talks ballcocks
There comes a time in every life when one is forced to address a ballcock. That time has just come for me. And since the ballcock is located in my garden, I have chosen to write about it for the premier gardening magazine in New Zealand, and possibly the galaxy. The story begins with a weeping tank.
One digresses briefly to discuss the evocative ambiguity of ‘weeping tank’. For me it conjures two images. The first, a war machine with inch-thick armour rumbling into battle and crying as it goes, convulsed with sobs for the innocent blood it is about to shed, the tears descending from its gun turret and smearing with the dust. The second image is of a young woman so utterly in love, so in thrall to her beau, that when he jilts her she weeps unstoppably for days on end, for months, for the rest of her life. And she catches every one of her tears in a handkerchief that she then wrings out into a dedicated receptacle. And as the years pass and her grief does not subside, she is forever swapping the receptacle for a larger one. To the point that now, in bent and frail old age, it occupies most of her little cottage and she shuffles around it, her whole existence overshadowed by her monolithic weeping tank.
My weeping tank stands in the garden above the level of the house and holds however many hundred gallons of water, so that at any time of day or night I can just summon gravity, the servant that has never been known to sleep, to send me some via taps located conveniently about my house. The tank is supplied by the mains water supply that comes, I can only presume, from good old God. Good old God is keen to fill the tank to the top and then some and is only prevented from doing so by the trusty ballcock. For as the water level rises to the rim, the ballcock rises with it, and at the vital moment closes off the inlet valve and saves us all from inundation. But good old God is a persistent bugger and recently the ballcock has begun to tire and has let God overfill the tank a bit and the surplus has forced itself from under the rim of the lid and the tank has wept.
One digresses briefly to point out that the trusty ballcock has indeed been trusty. It has held off good old God and the threat of inundation for every single minute of every day of the 10 years or so that I’ve been writing for this fêted magazine. But how many times have I mentioned it in these pages? How often have I thanked it for its prophylactic labours? Precisely. Faithful service is a mug’s game, acknowledged only when it comes to an end, at funerals, say, or when a tank weeps.
Type ‘weeping tank’ into the internet and you will arrive at a video in which a cheerful plumber demonstrates how to change the washer on a ballcock valve and thus to dry the tears. At the hardware store I found these washers came in packs of three.
One digresses briefly to observe that I am in my 60th year and this was the first time I have had need of a ballcock washer. So in buying the three-pack I was laying in supplies to last me till I am 180.
According to the video it was now just a simple matter of shutting off the water supply, unscrewing the inlet valve housing, dismantling the ballcock, changing the washer, putting it all back together, slapping the tank and exclaiming that Bob was your father’s brother. But my inlet valve housing had not been unscrewed in half a century. I adjusted my wrench, leant on the handle, adopted a manly posture, pulled a manly face, and then, with the dog looking on admiringly, applied my considerable weight. Then, having said a very manly word, I was just going back down to the house to fetch a sticking plaster, when the neighbour arrived. One digresses briefly to explain the convenience of having a neighbour who is practical, generous and teetotal. For after he had changed the ballcock washer, with the dog looking on admiringly and me sucking thoughtfully on my wounded hand, I offered him a bottle of Brookhill Australian Shiraz for his pains and he declined it.
One digresses briefly to say that, according to the New Zealand Wine Society from whom I buy it, Brookhill Shiraz has a nose of fresh juicy dark berries, spices and plum aromas with a subtle oak influence. And thus we go out as we came in, with ballcock. ✤