Hands numbed by cold, feet frozen and cursing.

We have an aljibe in our house. An aljibe is a sort of water cistern. Ours is about two metres deep so I suppose it's capacity is a bit under 9,000 gallons or 40 cubic metres. It collects the water from the roof gutters on our house. In the past these cisterns, and wells, were the water supply for country houses. Nowadays, we have mains water but the aljibe was useful for summer garden watering. Unfortunately the aljibe started to leak; it would only hold about 15cms of water. The rest went somewhere else. We suspected that the somewhere else was the source of the damp patch on one of our walls. Spanish houses, often damp proof course less, are prone to rising damp but we did think we should put up, at least, a token resistance.

A builder told us it was tree roots punching through the concrete to get to the water. A temporary fix was possible but the roots would be back. We tried and he was right. Someone else told us that fixing aljibes was a specialist job and with the falling demand and the way that older people retire and die there were none of those specialists still working. They suggested we sealed off the cistern.

In the end my solution was very Heath Robinson. I stopped the downpipes feeding into the aljibe and put plastic dustbins to collect the rainwater. I pumped all of the water I could from the aljibe and then bought a dirty water pump that automatically activates with rising water level and put it in one of the dustbins. There are two dustbins and only one pump so if the rain is heavy I have to go and get soaked as I move the pump from one bin to the other. The set up is not at all elegant but we reckoned that if the aljibe were the source of the damp patch that was the lesser of two evils.

We had a hailstorm the other day. The hail was so thick it looked like snow. Then it froze into a sheet of ice. As I passed the dustbins I realised they were full and brimming over. Slip sliding across the ice sheet I tried to get the pump working. It didn't want to. I had to read the manual to fix the problem. My hands were frozen, my feet were wet and numb. I expected to break my neck on the ice sheet. Eventually I pumped out the bins but I could hear water running into the aljibe. I opened the hatch and we were back to the 15cms of water. Enough had seeped in through the hinges on the hatch etc. More fighting with the pump, more icy cold water running onto my back from a dribbling roof gutter. It took ages but I emptied the cistern then I covered all the holes and seepage points. Black plastic sheeting held down with rocks added to the ugliness of the dustbin, trailing hose, water pump and dustbin setup.

I don't think it's a win. I suspect that aljibe has been collecting water for hundreds of years and it will find a way to maintain that tradition!