Roman Emperor Hadrian was famous not only for building walls to separate marauding Scots from English border farmers but also for his passion for hydraulics  – the water features at his summer villa in Tivoli were a wonder of the Roman world and my guess is that the current batch of Italian plumbers still wonder how they did it – without modern tools – all those hundreds of years ago!

Certainly the team of Super Marios restoring a flat on the third floor of a Palazzo in Florence could have used a little advice from Hadrian’s team – forgetting to turn off a faucet when they left work for the evening they created enough standing water to flood the B+B below – an unpleasant surprise for my friend Linda when she let herself in after midnight and almost slipped as she plashed through the pool of water and tried to avoid the collection of half-full buckets and waste-paper baskets that she found just inside the door, each one placed strategically under the stream of water now pouring  through the ceiling.

Her own room – precious with original 16c fresco and a view overlooking the Arno – was no haven from this nightmare, as water was also cascading down the walls through every crack that the weight of water above had created – including the electricity wires which led to a fairground attraction light flashing on and off as she groped around the room trying to pull her belongings together before they got drenched.

She phoned the manager on the business number only to hear her phone ringing unanswered on the office desk nearby ….so naturally reluctant to spend the night in what was turning into a swimming pool she called me for support …… Did I have the manager’s cell phone number? Luckily I did!

The phone rang for some time before an angry voice suggested that I called later – No” I responded following up in bad Italian “You have to come over NOW and rescue your business!”

– “Ma, sono a letto!” was the mournful reply , followed sotto voce with “con una donna!”

I had to explain that lovely though the woman might be, it was in his best interest to leave his bed and come and attend to his rooms before they were washed away.

Some belief that women always exaggerate problems– and no doubt a hope that he wouldn’t have to leave the excitement of his bed – prompted him to ask me to go and check it out personally in person and ring him back if the situation really was as bad as Linda was saying – I promised to do so but advised him that he needed to prepare himself and his lady love for a disturbed night.

Far from exaggerating the mess, when I arrived ten minutes later the problem was actually worse than Linda had suggested and there seemed little we could do to help without the keys to the empty flat above.  Happily I did manage to find another resident of the Palazzo, whom I persuaded  to give me the number of the actual owner of the building – who was at least 5 hours drive away in Milan!

Another sleepy voice and another agonising Italian conversation generated the suggestion “Chiamo l’ idraulico domani!”  I will call the plumber tomorrow? – Was he crazy?

I began again – even more stridently – not quite decending to the English stereotype of just talking louder in English ( although it was a temptation) and managed to explain that this was not a “tomorrow” problem if he wanted his building to be anything like functional in the near future.

He asked me to explain to him exactly where the water was coming from “ ogni orifizio – e ogni momento c’e ne sono di più!” I cried desperately hoping he would believe the truth that water was already seeping through every known hole and every moment making a whole lot more!

It was obvious that the situation was getting worse!

Fortunately the Manager then arrived to confirm to the owner that water really was pouring from every corner and through every light-fitting where it had found – or –created – a weakness. So he trotted off with my telephone to take instructions on how to turn off the water across the entire Palazzo. This was going to be a nice surprise for the other residents the next morning!

Linda had already decided to evacuate and stay with me – she was unable to turn on the lights in her bedroom for the waterfall and no-one could be expected to sleep whilst the roof leaked and the plaster under the fresco ballooned and threatened to collapse on her – but when the manager returned he offered her another room in a drier part of the Palazzo. This didn’t seem an optimum solution as she would have no water to wash in the morning and who knows where the water would strike next – however we thought it was worth checking out the leakage in the other rooms so dutifully followed him across the hallway.

This was not his night ….when he opened the door we were greeted with the sight of a sock, two tee- shirts and two pairs of underpants strewn from the door in a path leading towards the bed …..this was clearly not a vacant room and we had chosen an inopportune moment to make our entrance!

The manager exploded “Chi e? Chi e? Cosa Facete? Come siete in Casa Mia? – a sleepy American voice responded and a lanky youth emerged at the door in his shorts to explain in English “We checked in online” …our fee was taken but nobody answered the telephone”  Evidently they had got in when a departing guest was leaving  and they had showed  them the empty dry room before they abandoned their own water-logged space.

Unfortunately he was not in the mood to listen to English – what he really wanted to do was to hit something before he exploded – I was a little worried that our new American friend might have made a good target but happily common-sense overcame the Italian eccitabilità and I was co-opted as translater to explain the situation from the perspective of the guest!

This was just one of my adventures related to plumbing in 2014 -the day after this adventure  we found plumbing problems at the hotel directly opposite the architectural site of Hadrian’s Villa, this time a whole group of us, including poor Linda, had to move to another hotel …….how we wished that they had access to the plumbing capability of the Ancient Romans!