Catch-up.

Yes, I'm on holiday again. And the urge to write has arisen. So far this week hasn't been too holidayish.  On Monday afternoon we lost all power to the house. It took me a while before I called the power company about it and a while longer to find out the mains entry box had burnt out. My partner was out of town but he was able to contact the landlord to let them know (sounds like they didn't appreciate the call at all), made contact with the electrician and arranged for him to come over sometime on Tuesday morning. It's the middle of winter here and this house is not insulated and very cold even with heaters (and the oven used regularly) on. I elected to take the kids out on a shopping expedition to gather some essential items for various camps coming up in the next week. Just to get warm and charge my phone as we drove (turns out the charger is probably faulty - yay!). We wandered the particular chain store that was still open and filled a trolley with everything we needed and maybe some things we didn't, until it was almost closing time. Next, we headed over to the local McDs to get some food, found a tv on and sat there for a while, the kids marvelling at the 80s music videos being played. By this time it was close to 10pm so we headed back home. The kids decided to sleep the night in the lounge, dragged all their bits up by lantern light, and talked for quite some time. I went to bed, turned on my laptop and looked at several issues of Sockupied until the battery ran out.

Tuesday dawned cold and gray. I wasn't sure whether we had any/much hot water so noone was allowed showers and all the dishes from the previous day (these kids know how to make mess with dishes!) were left - turns out this was not a good idea as it appears the electrician reports back to the landlord about the state of things - we recieved an email yesterday about it but basically making out this was an ongoing issue - one that has never been mentioned to us in the entire six years we have been living here. The landlord is good at taking an issue and stretching it out over time or instances (ie, all of the windowsills, when it's only one). I have never had such a picky landlord in all my life, never so many issues with insignificant things (photos of a speck of dust in the shower and basin) and never been accused of causing damage.

So, the electrician fixed the problem. The power company were contacted, appropriate paperwork sorted and the linesguy showed up to turn us back on. 24 hours without power. Not a long time, but it was another example of how much we rely on this modern convenience entirely and can barely manage when we lose it.

A few weeks ago I had our car break down on the way to work on the rainiest, windiest, coldest day for a while. Everyone had enough of having to walk and catch public transport by the end of that week.  I have a shiny 'new' (read Jap import) car now that I love and am so grateful to be in a position to have been able to sort that out myself (as, yet again, my partner was out of town) and to have a good friend who helped me out when I needed it so much!

Not long after the power came back on, we had a sleep-over visitor arrive, a trip to the supermarket, the kids made some form of edible food together and watched dvds for the rest of the evening while I knitted to mindless tv.

Yesterday was the promised mall expedition. I hate malls these days. However, everyone got what they wanted and we ate more rubbish food, as you do. Dropped our visitor home and made yet another supermarket visit for slightly less junky dinner (chicken and yogurt?) I knitted more sock in front of more junky tv and had another night of bad sleep.

There's been much knitting and lots of learning going on in the last two months...and plenty of yarn buying, which I promised myself not to do...