getting a 'to it'

Well I came back from Auckland with several posts spinning around my head about Yearly Meeting and the seminar, being back at uni and several other things that had been taking up headspace for the last 10 days or so.

Today was to be the day when I caught up on internet related things having spent my time after returning yesterday afternoon unpacking, washing clothes, reorganising my room to fit the stuff extracted from storage and managing to get hold of my parents on skype.

I had my 'to do' list and was all set to start after breakfast (for once eaten at the table and not multi-tasking at the computer) when the radio fizzled out and various applicances expressed their indignation to us. We had a 'brown out'. The power had dropped so low as to be virtually not there, and eventually gave up the ghost altogether. So, to save aforementioned appliances from deciding to go into a terminal sulk, the three of us went around switching off everything at the wall, and I mean everything - freezers, the works. A task involving chairs, ladders, sticks and balancing appliances at angles that certainly don't come recommended in the manufacturers instructions and would give OSH a heart attack.

The weather was having power surges too - on again off again rain meaning bright clear skies one minute and dim grey light you could barely read by the next.

Power outages aren't exactly uncommon round here during or after bad weather and the thunder storm last night was pretty spectacular. Usually power isn't long returning though so the morning trickled by as we found odds and ends of things to do whilst awaiting showers (ha! for once I'd had mine before breakfast!), the internet, water and electricity in general. The downside of tanked water is an electric pump.... how long can you sit cross-legged hoping the power will come back on so you can flush the loo? Needless to say we gave up waiting long before the power resumed 7 hours later!

Well one small task led to another and eventually I gave in - reorganising my filing has been on my 'to do' list since I got back from the UK with the last bits of official paperwork that needed to be kept 'somewhere safe'. I needed to find my UK police check for work and it wasn't where I thought it was.

So several hours later, having recarpeted the sitting room with paper in the meantime I am now the proud possessor of an organised filing system. I even found my police check, altho' sadly not in time for William to JP certify a copy of it before heading off to Brisbane and presumably electricity. It was somewhat theraputic to chuck out (recycle!) a great heap of defunct paperwork and return what was left to some some semblance of order - which has been sorely lacking since I left Edinburgh.

It wasn't quite the to do list I had intended to clear today but I feel much better for it. Maybe we should have power cuts more often..... I will blog the other stuff eventually though, honest!