TAP TURNS ON THE WATER . . .

Until moving abroad to live in a finca in rural Mallorca, I took it for granted that water came out of the tap if I turned it on. But it's a very different matter here in the country, where there's no mains water and we have to buy our supply by the tanker-load (15,000 litres at a time).

When we need a top-up, we ring Jaume (our local water supplier) to request a delivery. He doesn't seem like a man who really enjoys his job, despite the fact that, whatever the time of day, the background noises suggest that he's in a bar - probably not drinking water. We're never quite sure whether or not he's going to arrive because his only response is to grunt and hang up. Clearly not a graduate of the academy of telecommunications skills . . .

Without fail, though, Jaume arrives in his large white tanker and stops in the lane alongside our cisterna - the rather unsightly large concrete cube which houses our water supply. Next he unravels the vehicle's mighty elephant trunk-like hose and yanks it into the gaping mouth of the cisterna to begin the job of transferring the water. It takes up to 15 minutes from start to finish and blocks the narrow lane to all traffic for that time. Hours can go by without a vehicle using this lane, so why does he always arrive just as our mallorquin neighbours are leaving for work, thus delaying their journey?

Thus replenished, the cisterna feeds the house with water - courtesy of gravity, an electric water pump and several metres of black tubing. A bamboo pole is the essential tool for the weekly task of measuring how much remains in the cisterna. When the water reaches only as far as the little red paint splodge on the pole, it's time for another meaningful conversation with 'The Water-Bored' . . .

Jan Edwards Copyright 2008