IF anyone had asked, on Sunday afternoon, what we thought of the Easter weekend so far, we'd have said: "Brilliant!"

By mid-evening it would have been: "Not a lot" after a call from upstairs saying: "Dad, did you know there's water seeping down the landing wallpaper?"

Of course he flipping didn't or he'd have done something about it (I hope). He went to investigate. I carried on washing up; when it comes to water in the wrong place I am a devout coward.

A quick visit to a far corner of the roof space showed that not only was the ballcock in the central heating expansion tank not doing what ballcocks ought, but that the overflow pipe had severed its relationship with the body of the tank.

Now the man who'll build wardrobes, reorganise the electrics and hang wallpaper with the best is only a mite less cowardly about the plumbing system than I am. He jury-rigged it "until morning".

"Morning" was, of course, also a bank holiday and plumbers at short notice are like gold dust on ordinary working days. It was time to test the plumbing insurance we'd tacked on to our central heating maintenance contract a couple of years ago.

At 8.45 on Monday, Sir rang up. No, it wasn't dire, just dripping slightly, he said. Right, someone would come some time before 6pm.

Unbelievably, by elevenses time the pipe was reseated, the ballcock renewed and all that remained was to finish the drying out. Cost of work: nil. Annual premium: less than a callout fee. Thank you, British Gas - have a bouquet, because I have heaved brickbats your way in my time here.

As we drank our coffee, the offspring mused that, if her job in IT ended up on its back with its feet in the air, she could retrain as a plumber. A friend of a friend who'd done that was booked up four months ahead, with too much work ever to respond to anyone's emergency. It's not so far-fetched for a practical soul. She had, after all, arrived on Good Friday in the geriatric Peugeot muttering about workshop manuals not explaining how to cope with the hair escaping from your bun when you're up to the elbows in grease putting your wheels back on. I just thought how handy it would be to have a tame plumber in the family, except that there's that well-known saying about cobblers' wives.

There must be, too, quite a customer base for a female plumber among elderly women living alone.

That isn't to say male plumbers and decorators are all rookers and terrorisers of old ladies. It's just that, if those old ladies can't contact someone they've used for years and probably knew when he was "the lad", they feel happier, apparently, with another woman in the house.