You can see mine if I can see yours

I was somewhat startled when one of our neighbours accosted me this afternoon and uttered those words. I walk past his house most days, and we exchange cheery waves, and he does throw excellent parties, but really …! He led me round the back of his house and lifted a hatch in the floor of his bandstand to expose a drain cover. This he raised to reveal – a well!

Having got all the ‘Well I never’ and ‘Well, well, well’ jokes out of the way I could confirm that the construction of his newly discovered well was identical to that of ours. He found his when he was trying to find a suitable drain to take the overflow from his hot-tub and lifted the cover of what he assumed was a sewer. We found ours when the Boy was small and jumping up and down on the rough concrete near the back door. The concrete suddenly sagged and gave way, but luckily the well had been filled with rubble when our horrid cowboy-built extension was constructed, or he’d have plunged into the depths.

We found, when we emptied it, that our well is only 10 feet deep, although it contained two skiploads of rubble and sludge, and the water level is about 2 feet below ground. Although the level in Rick’s is lower, we are puzzled how the watertable works, seeing as his house is further up the hill than ours. If water is all at the same level, as you’d assume it to be, our ground floor should be under three feet of water.

Ah. Right. I’d assumed we had a minor damp problem.