The tap in the downstairs bathroom only works properly if you don’t interfere with it.

That’s about as far as we’ve got.

It started as a normal problem. Turn the tap, nothing happens for a second, then a burst, then it settles. Slight delay. Air in the system maybe. One of those things that ends up on the same list as the loose tile and the gutter that only overflows when it rains properly.

I said I’d look at it.

Didn’t.

A few days later someone mentioned it again, but not like a problem.

“Don’t turn it all the way. Just a bit.”

That was new.

Now there’s a way of using it.

You go in, turn it slowly, not too far, and then leave it alone. If you start adjusting it, turning it off and back on, that’s when it goes wrong. Either nothing, or it spits and gives up halfway through.

But if you leave it, it usually sorts itself out.

The kids picked it up quickest. They treat it like one of those house rules no one explains. Turn, pause, leave it.

My wife still hates it.

Every time she uses it there’s that pause, like she’s deciding whether this is the moment we finally deal with it. Then she washes her hands and walks out.

I did take it apart once.

Turned off the water. Took the top off. Looked at it for a bit. Put it back together again.

No difference.

Left it alone after that.

There’s probably a reason for it. Pressure, air, something slightly off in the pipe run. In a normal place someone would sort it.

Here it just gets folded in.

Same as the lights dipping if too much is on, or the terrace door that only shuts if you lift it slightly. I wrote about the power in winter before and it feels like the same kind of thing, just smaller.

So the tap stays.

No one’s fixing it this week. Probably not next week.

Someone will turn it too far at some point and it’ll stop again.

Then we’ll all stand there for a second, waiting to see if it comes back on its own.