Trouble At t'Mill

Well! You could knock me down with a feather! A ruddy great fire at the bottom of our street, fire engines from several towns, 35 firemen and I slept through it! PMB Pallet Express only have to go brrrrrm and my eyes pop open. This can only mean that -

a. the firemen were whispering
or
b. My grump radar only picks up noises that are guaranteed to annoy me.

The first I knew of the fire at the Mill pub was when I was woken at 7.45-ish by my neighbours talking in the street. I decided that as they were obviously making enough noise to wake the dead that they must need me awake. I jumped athletically out of bed - ok, stop laughing - then shuffled my way to the bathroom [more like it]. When I flushed the loo it made a most peculiar noise. I went downstairs to fill my brand new 'glow in the dark' kettle [bought yesterday] with what can only be described as sludge. Still I didn't twig that our water had been diverted to put out a fire, my fuddled brain is not entirely at fault though, as we used to regularly have to run our water to get rid of the brown tinge.

My neighbour - knowing my morning dimness - text me to put me in the picture re-sludgy water, she'd most probably heard our pipes bumping and gurgling, so judged that I was up. She even - bless her - came around a little later with bottled water that my other neighbour had fetched. By this time I'd successfully packed a disgruntled 'I want a wee NOW!' cat ready to go to the manor/tin hut, so I thanked her and said that we'd already made do with the sludge - well it was early and I certainly wasn't awake enough to taste the difference.

I don't know if the Mill pub [aka The Midland] was a fire of convenience, it's certainly not for me to speculate here, but I had heard that it had been bought at auction in May with a view to turning it into flats without planning permission given, and apparently it's difficult to get a change of use from a pub. But that's all hearsay and rumour. Thankfully as it was empty, no-one was hurt and that's the main thing ...