The Drains

We had invited some people over for dinner last Saturday night and I had decided to cook a series of Curries with all the “trimmings”. No real issue with the food I had started to cook on the Thursday, some on the Friday and finish off on the Saturday.
During the Saturday I decided I needed more chicken so off to the supermarket I went, as I descended the stairs to the road level I caught a whiff of drains but ignored it. On the way back to the villa entrance I again caught a bad smell. Again I ignored it.
As I was busy “cheffing” as The Lady of the Villa calls it she went off on a tour of her garden to se how things were there. She had only been gone ten minutes when she called to me in the kitchen, “We have a problem!”.  My only problem was getting the Korma to the right consistency, so what was wrong?
Just below the steps to the road level a whole “pond” of effluent had appeared (no photographs to save the reader throwing up). Our drains were blocked and it was 5pm on a Saturday afternoon. we had no rods, no way of unblocking and the smell was… well you can imagine and as the washing machine and dishwasher were on the pool was getting bigger. Off went all the machines. Diving for a copy of the “yellow pages” I managed to get a company to come out on “Emergency” (it was a Saturday they explained).
They arrived an hour later and left 30 minutes later 150 euros richer the pool gone and the air smelling sweeter. Our guests never noticed a thing!