Utility bills

We have another water leak.  I’ve mentioned before that our water meter is on the mountainside above our house, about 10 minutes walk away, and that from the meter the pipe is our responsibility.  We had thought this year we were ok, the pressure was good and Mr FF had understandably been reluctant to take a machete to hack his way through the undergrowth to the sometimes snake infested pit that houses the meters.  
This week a man from the water authority was here looking for the meter, armed only with an iPad he had no chance and left without taking readings. 
Anyway this visit prompted Mr FF to turn off the water at our house, beat a path to the pit and see if the meter was spinning, it was.  We couldn’t have a summer without a water leak though I do wonder why it’s always our pipe that fails not one of the three other houses in our road.  Fortunately earlier in the year Mr FF had spent a couple of days clearing the gully the pipe runs down of brambles and self seeded trees.  He was able to find water bubbling up from the earth fairly quickly.   Let’s hope it’s an easy fix.  
In case you are wondering why our meter is so far away, it seems the water authority only have to supply within a short distance of a road, our road is private so it doesn’t qualify and though we’ve all tried to get the meter moved closer, like the end of our road, it’s just not happening.  No doubt when we do get a meter reading and a proper bill there will be further discussion.
Speaking of which we didn’t get a bill for refuse collection last year, we reported this and were told the lady who dealt with the accounts had been off work, quite a lot of people hadn’t been charged and that an invoice would arrive.  Subsequently we received and paid this years bill but despite a reminder nothing has come for last year, I just hope it isn’t the same situation as the tax office where we received a 30% fine for declaring some unpaid tax, in fact we’d paid the tax in the UK but that didn’t help.  We were told if we’d kept quiet and waited to be discovered the fine would have been 10% and if we weren’t found out within 5 years we’d have got away with it. Smart thinking that strategy, like putting water meters in an inaccessible location and not being able to charge.