No Electricity

Early this morning, I had heard the sound of something being pulled very quickly through the grass or bushes. Being on edge after last week, I immediately investigated and could see nothing.

At 3 am this morning, Emma started her usual "the dummy has dropped out whine" and I got up to sort it out. When I ended up in our spare room instead of the babies room, I realised that I was now awake and there was something wrong.

What was wrong was that it was pitch black. There was no electricity. After checking the trip switches inside and outside the house (barefoot), I realised that it was not our fault. We had joined half of JHB in a massive electricity blackout as the extreme cold had resulted in too much electricity being pulled by everyone.

This morning there was still nothing. So out came our gas bottles which I bought for this exact occasion. Turned out that the cable had snapped right in front of our house and we were the only ones without electricity. I had heard the cable falling through the trees outside our house.

I then registered the problem on the council hotline and nothing happened. Oh boy did we worry given that tomorrow is a massive government employees strike. If we didn't get the problem resolved today - the chance was that it would only be resolved next week. In this cold, not good.
Late this afternoon, I phoned the helpline to be told that I had not been given the proper reference number (thanks Eric who gave me the number) and that I would need to register our problem again. Grrrrrrrrrrr. I added a little bit about having babies this time.

To make things easier, we went over to my Mom to access her microwave to make the babies porridge, to have some hot dinner, a hot shower and to ensure some warmth for the babies.

And then when we came home, guess what: our lights were on. What a relief! We expected a far longer wait as there were so many problems. Despite Eric's uselessness, the service was pretty good if one considers how many issues the council had last night. Vanie in my office sat without electricity for three days. We are thankful!

So all is well, it is beginning to warm up and should be closer to 20 degrees by next week.

At work someone had forgotten to turn off the automatic garden sprinkler system and so we arrived to a world of wonderful icicles hanging from the trees and bannisters. Even the grass was covered in little ice structures. Very pretty.

To bed, we are exhausted ...