Water, Water, give me water

We have been in the grips of a really cold snap, fortunately we have not had the snow others have had, but it is still cold enough to freeze the do-da's off a proverbial brass monkey.
We lost our water about 10 days ago due to the cold weather, as some of you might know we are not on the water mains like many of our fellow human beings, we get our water from the mountain behind the house, less fluoride or additives that way ; )

We have a very large water vat half way up the hill, which is a beggar to keep climbing up to when the water goes of for something stupid like a bit of bracken stuck down the main infill pipe to the vat from the burn.
But it keeps you fit.
Anyway with it being so cold the ground has been frozen solid, and I could actually walk on the ice all the way up our burn outside the house, never been able to do this for years, the ice was about 3" thick in places.
Every time I burst a hole through it to get water for the animals because the byre water supply was off to, I had to burst the ice again in the afternoon because it froze over so quickly.
Anyway we have a 62mm plastic hose that runs from the vat on the hillside under the train track underpass, then it is dug under ground about 3 feet down to the house.
About 20 feet from the house the hose changes to a 3/4" bore, at a Y piece that supplies water to the byre and the house, this is where it appeared to freeze and cut off our supply.
Well the byre water came back on after about 6 days the house water supply was a different matter.
In the end my husband had to go out on Saturday with a punch bar that he uses for fencing and try to break the ground up around the smaller hose.
After much huffing and puffing he managed to get daylight to the hose, another hour later and banging of the pipe, also pouring hot water and salt solution down the pipe, a low groan and gurgling noise was heard to come from way down the pipe, all of a sudden the water came blasting out with shards of ice being pushed out from the pressure of the water.
Once the air was out of the pipe he reconnected it and hey presto we had water again.
The tank in the attic void was filling nicely, once it was full the hot water was put on, I for one was sick of having what they call a sink wash, I needed a long soak in a hot tub ahhh.
One thing to remember hubby dear, don't turn off the cold water tap over night again when it's freezing outside if you want to keep the water to the house ; )