Tour de France

My husband doesn't watch T.V. - Tour De France being his one and only exception, when he sits up half the night for three weeks, transfixed by two hundred guys on bicycles.  On the odd occasion I watch the beginning with him, hoping to poke him in the ribs as they show off some stunning chateaux.  I'll be honest - I also enjoy the culinary segment presented by Gabriel Gate'.

Well the other day, Gabriel Gate' dished up a recipe for leg of lamb, Normandy style.  With sheep grazing in the foreground, and Mt St Michel in the background, who could resist?

So I told my daughter that tonight Gabriel Gate' was coming to cook dinner.  "Gabriel who?", she asked.  So I explained.  She gazed at me.  So I dug out my best French accent, and tried to impersonate the famous chef.  Aha ... now she understood.  Except that she forgot his name.

So, all afternoon she kept asking "So, when is Master Chef coming?"

When we finally made it into the kitchen, I impersonated Gabriel again, just to set the scene.  By now she memorised his surname - well, sort of.  So, every time I turned my back it was "Hey, Gateaux!"

And if I turned around and spoke normally I was heavily reprimanded that "you are not Mama any more, you are Gateaux, speak like Gateaux!"

As the dinner preparations went on, and our conversation continued - me speaking with ze sexy French accent, and flirting like a true Frenchman, while the little girl batted her lashes, blushed, smiled and encouraged me to go on, we eventually moved onto first name basis.  Except my female form must have cast an influence, and so it became "Hey Gabriella!".

Eventually, dinner was served.  Given how much play acting and French talking oozed over it anything could have been forgiven, but it was not only edible, but delicious!  I was allowed to become Mama again as long as Gabriel made the odd appearance.

Still showering

I would just like post an update - I am still showering in the garden of the Gods.  Yep, come around at the right time, and you'll see me starkers under the outside shower.  (This almost happened to one workman!  He should be so lucky ...)

The thing is, I keep trying to find weather situations that will make me hate the outdoor shower for ever.  But I can't.  So far I have showered in rain, wind, cold weather and warm weather, and I've always walked away feeling fantastic, and loving the experience.  Which might just say something about how indulgent the simple shower really is.

I have actually found that showering on a warm, but windy, day to be the worst.  Cold and windy was fine.  But warm and windy ... I don't know.  Not my cup of tea I guess.

Go West ... ern

Our pony club declared that they were having a "Western Day".  The kids were going to experience everything Western - Western riding, videos of Western horses, etc.  Of course, we were encouraged to dress up too.

I have no idea what possessed me.  A Western shirt and a bandana would have done just fine.  But no.  For some reason, I, not my lovely daughter attending Pony Club, but I ... I got all carried away and decided that I had to make some chaps for Sabina.  Initially I had visions of brown leathery chaps, but imagination very quickly took me towards pink chaps with tassles.  (I LOVE tassles.)  For two days I was like a whirlwind possessed (or should that be tornado possessed?).

Two days - that's how long it took to buy the material (and tassles), surf the internet only to find that free patterns for chaps are hard to come by (but x-rated sites are not!  sheesh!), create a pattern out of paper ("Mama, I'm not going to wear those, they will rip"), cut the material (oh, do be careful, there's no going back), and then stitch it all together (they fit, yay!).

The final product was a hit, but it took me a week to recover from my whirlwind effort.

Harry Potter and the Family Wizards

My reading of the Harry Potter books to my daughter, has not only started a trend. It has started a cult-like following. It all started when my daughter arrived at the table one lunchtime and announced "Mama, I hope I will be in Griffindor".

We are not ones to gape for long, and I replied "I'm sure you will be. After all, I was in Griffindor".

Sabina took my response in her stride, as though it was obvious that I had gone to wizarding school, and turned to Papa.

"Papa, what house where you in, when you went to Hogwarts?"

"Ravenclaw", replied Papa.

Jokes aside though, when you start digging deeper, how do you explain the picture of my mum with a black cat sitting on her shoulder? And why do we have wizard's robes and hats hanging in the upstairs bedroom?

It also doesn't help that we have a guinea pig named Ginny, and a horse name Lilly.

Take a number

Sabina has been really sick yesterday.  She is better today, but still sitting in bed.  And drawing.  And she needs a sharpener for her pencil.  Well, we've just arrived at the farm and I am busy busy busy.  Busy lighting fire, busy unpacking the car, busy putting food in the fridge.  Busy.

"Mama, I need a sharpener", she pleads.

"Oh Sabina, take a number", I say jokingly.  She thinks about this for a moment, then says "so, what number am I?"

For a split second, I am stumped.

"Number 2", I recover.

But wait, it gets better.  A few minutes later, she needs something else.

"Mama, you need to colour in the spider.  What number am I this time?", she asks.

"Number 4", I respond.

"Ok, and who is number 3?", she quizzes.

"My coffee!"

At this point, I'm laughing, and add "Sabina, that's going straight to the blog".

"To where?", she looks at me puzzled.

"To the blog", I straighten up.

"Oh, is that where the santonym went?"

Gone paddling

Last night Sabina and I drove up to the farm. Peter arrived some time later, and by that time, Sabina was asleep. This morning, she woke up all excited and asked "where is Papa?". Gone. Gone paddling.

The little girl was undisturbed by this, and went off, merrily to play with her toys. Half an hour later she emerged with her soft toys stuffed into the guinea pig tunnel. "Look Mama", she said, "they're paddling".

Yell for Cadel

 Cadel Evans has won the Tour the France.  Did we watch the Tour every night?  Yes we did.  (Ok, I watched it not every night, and only till 11pm at best, when I would do the classical nod forward.)  Were we sitting on tenderhooks?  Yes we were.  Did we get really excited every time Cadel looked like he had a good chance?  Yes we did.  Did my husband sit up at night at the farm, scanning Tour updates with his phone and then gave me updates when he finally crawled into bed?  Yes he did.

So, when they announced that Cadel will do a celebratory ride to Federation Square, I announced that I am attending.  (I have a really serious aversion to crowds).  The crowd on either side of the designated track was already lined three people deep when I got there.  By the time Cadel rode by, it was about eight deep.

But I did see Cadel ride by.  I saw his yellow jersey, I saw his bike, and I saw his genuine smile.  The crowds were huge, but it was worth it.

The Nimbus 4000

(We've been reading "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" to Sabina, so broomsticks and especially the Nimbus 2000 are fresh on her mind.)

This morning we're having a lazy family breakfast (at the ripe time of 11am!). Papa takes this opportunity to bring in my birthday present - which looks like a giant toblerone.

Between bites of egg, bacon and bread, we try to guess what could be hidden in such an odd shaped pakage. "Maybe it really is a giant toblerone?", I muse. "It's not a pair of riding boots, that's for sure." "Can't be a horse rug." "Doesn't exactly look like a book either." "Mama! I know! I know!", butts in Sabina. "It's a broom stick!" Given how much time I spend riding horses, it wouldn't at all surprise me if my husband was trying to divert my attention to riding something else. You know, to diversify. Broaden my horisons a bit.

"Mama! It's probably the Nimbus 2000!", exclaims Sabina.

"But Sabina, I'm not turning 20, or 200 or 2000", I comment.

"Ok then. It's a Nimbus 4000 then", the little girl can barely sit on the edge of her seat.

Having agreed that it's the Nimbus 4000, we open the mysterious package. We were close.

It turns out that the Nimbus 4000 is actually a portable horse yard (Retract-a-Fence), that you attach to your float, or to some other stationary device, such as a fence post.  Then you extend the remainder as far as you want to, creating either a yard, or a temporary fence (for example across your drive way, or in front of your shed).

Kids and puddles

There is something about puddles that makes them absolutely irresistible to kids.  Even if it's just wading through them in your gumboots to see how deep they are.

 But even better if you can take your schleich horses along for a bit of a wade!

Thowra and the foal were also lucky enough to snack on an apple.

While Boon Boon chose to go for a drink.

The BBQ

We had to do some shopping this morning, so we zipped down to Warragul.  These sort of trips are always troublesome for us, because by the time we've had our sleep in and we've arrived in Warragul it's almost time for lunch.  But, with Sabina being allergic to wheat, finding the "right" lunch, at the "right" price is not so easy.

So I came up with the brilliant idea that we'll have a barbeque in Warragul.

We arrived in the park.  Sabina quickly ran off to the man made creek with her brand new schleich horse, while Pete and I surveyed the barbeque.  It was spotlessly clean.

"Why?  It's brand new!", exclaimed Pete.  "We can't use that!"

What?!!  Hello?  When a barbeque is dirty, he complains about it, when it's clean we can't use it?  Make up your mind!

We used the barbeque, and it was fantastic.  Our onions and sausages were perfect, the weather was perfect, and we had the perfect family lunch in the park.  Priceless.

Taming Thowra

Once upon a time, when I was young, I was sent on a horse camp and fell in love with horses. My pleadings for a pony fell on deaf ears, but my parents were more than happy to drive me to the local library. There, I found "The Silver Brumby" books (see also here) and immersed myself in them. In my imagination I gallopped breathlessly with Thowra and Storm up the Ramshead range, and together with them I jumped down rocky outcrops.

So last year, when I spotted "The Silver Brumby" in a second hand bookshop, I bought it for my daughter, thinking that when she's about 10, she too might enjoy reading it. Well, that timeframe was shortened when a friend lent us the first series of "The Silver Brumby" cartoon. Sabina immediately fell in love with Thowra and Storm and watched the cartoon over and over again.

Then we watched the movie together, and then Papa read her the book. Sabina fell further in love with Thowra, with Bel Bel and with Golden. She would run around the playground, holding her arms out pretending that she was Thowra, rearing and striking out. Sometimes she would gallop around on Golden, and when we loaded the ponies into the float, her pretend Golden would always go on first.

In her playroom she added new horses, and they all jumped across "the ravine".

And finally, whenever we went out for a walk, Sabina would pretend we were brumby hunting. One time, I actually rode out with her, and we had to get off our ponies to herd the pretend brumbies, into the pretend corral. Of course, her brumby hunts were never fruitless. At the very least, she would come back with two brumbies. Then we had to spend time taming them, lunging them, getting them used to the saddle. Remember, we're talking pretend brumbies here.

In her brumby hunts, Sabina caught all sorts of brumbies, Bel Bel herself included. But for a long, long time Thowra eluded her. Although we did catch glimpses of him every now and then. Eventually, she gave in to temptation, and achieved a fete that no stockman in the book could. Finally, Sabina caught Thowra. And ... yes ... she tamed him, and rode him.

In the process, she became fascinated with the palomino colour. So when we started discussing a new pony, she desperately wanted a palomino. Luckily, when she met her new pony, a chestnut with a flaxen mane, she felt happy enough, as long as she could call her "Bel Bel".

Long Tunnel Extended Gold Mine

Walhalla used to have a gold mine.  A few of them, actually.  We go on a tour of the Long Tunnel Extended Gold mine, which was the biggest, and most profitable.  Incidentally, it's the only mine that offers tours.  Entrances to all the other mines are closed off with heavily padlocked doors.

Just walking down the tunnel itself (actually, up the tunnel) is an amazing experience - seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (behind us) get smaller and smaller.  Eventually the tunnel forks, and we gaze up the left fork, the smaller fork - it just begs to be investigated.  We continue up the right fork into a huge double chamber - the size of a small house.

Here, our guide, Sheriff, explains to us how water continually seeps into the mine, and had to be pumped out. They had serious boilers in this chamber to provide the energy to pump this water out, and they had chimneys going directly from this chamber up 130m to the surface to get rid of all the smoke. Well they had all sorts of problems with debris dropping down said chimney, due to the heat of the smoke. So they lined it with bricks. Can you imagine? Working inside a chimney, 130m tall, merely 4 feet wide, lining it with bricks?

Sheriff shows us a map of all the tunnels, and where the gold was found. My jaw drops, because I realise that we are in the very top, very first tunnel. We're at the tunnel's end, where a shaft drops down 923m! That's almost a kilometre! Straight down, towards the centre of the earth. And this was dug out in the late 1800's, with relatively primitive tools! But the even more amazing thing is that there are tens of tunnels extending horizontally left and right off this shaft! Think about it. Kilometres and kilometres of tunnels, deep down under the earth. No light at the end of those tunnels. And that's where the gold was dug out from. All 13.7 tonnes of it.

I move away from the group, and find the shaft in a corner of the chamber. It's been sealed off, and made into a bit of a display. Behind the glass, on the right I can see a miner on a ladder. Blue uniform, a miner's lamp. Next to him, there is a trolley full of ore. The trolley is sitting in a cage - this is the real shaft, the big 1km hole in the ground. The trolley has wheels. I gaze down at the ground - I am standing on a pair of rails. Like train tracks. I gaze back down the tunnel - the train tracks run all the way to the end of that tunnel.

My mind comes alive. I can see trolleys being hauled up, being released from the cage and pushed down the tunnel, towards the light. They rattle as they roll. Men toil hard, feeding wood into the boilers, and getting trolleys out of the cage, their faces beading with sweat. I entertain visions from one of the Indiana Jones movies. A sneaky smile creeps onto my face.

Sabina, curious, comes over. She sees the miner behind the glass. "Mama, is he alive?", her eyes widen with childlish disbelief. I am so, so tempted to say "yes", but I resist. She is so innocent in her concern for the poor miner behind the glass.

"So, 20m below us is the water table", Sheriff's voice bellows over our thoughts. "And 300m below us are the stables." Sabina pricks up her ears. "Just before they closed the mine, they sent all the school kids in here, disassembled as much as they could and brought it up to the surface. Then they shot the ponies, got everyone out, and turned everything off. The entire mine flooded, and now we can only get 20m down the shaft." If you thought Sabina's eyes were big when she saw the miner, you should see them now. "But why did they shoot the pony?", she asks.

"We spoke to one of the women who, as a schoolgirl was sent into the mine to help disassemble equipment", Sheriff continues. "She said that there were trolleys loaded with ore. There is no evidence that those trolleys ever made it up to the surface. So we know there is gold down there." Everyone gets a little twinkle in their eye. Gold talks in mysterious ways. Sabina, tugs at my sleeve. "But Mama, why did they shoot they pony?".

Finally we turn back down the passage. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Sabina leads us out of the mine. The tour is over, but the question "why did they shoot the pony?" haunts us for the remainder of the day.

Walhalla Railway

We are spending the weekend in Walhalla, an old gold mining town. Sabina has already told all her school friends on Friday that she is off to "Walhalla-halla" for the weekend. Very cute.

Our first attraction is the Walhalla Railway.

When we arrive at the station, the train is already waiting.  Sabina gets all excited, jumping up and down, while I purchase tickets.  The train has two carriages pulled by a diesel engine.  The carriages have windows, which have all been dropped down, so the air in the train, is as fresh as outside the train.

The station master goes ahead with the full protocol of whistle, "All aboard!", wave the green flag, and we're off.  Sabina is jumping up and down with joy, sticking her neck out of the window, and grinning from ear to ear.

The train moves off slowly, and the red carriages creak and groan.  I poke my head out of the window too, and admire the creek below us.  We're in a deep gorge, with the road cutting a straight line somewhere up above us.  "There's brumbies up there", comments Sabina.

The valley is green and lush with ferns.  The train track is cut into the side of the hill.  As I look ahead, I can only see the rocky mountainside, that seems to suddenly disappear.  It looks like the train might just continue straight, and run off the edge.  But, it doesn't.  At the last moment, I see the green engine turn left, hugging the side of the mountain.

Another time, it looks like we might well scrape a rocky ledge.  It passes within hand's reach.  It's better than a Disneyland ride. 

We pass a tiny station called "Happy Valley", and eventually we cross the Thomson river, and end up at Thomson.  Here we have a chance to jump off and explore for a few minutes.  Visions of Menzies Creek station and their devine devonshire teas come whafting to me from the past.  The whistle of the train, now turned for home, brings me back to the present.  We board, and re-live the journey back to Walhalla.  Sabina's enthusiasm is unabating.

Typical day at the farm

I've been reading Bill Bryson's "At home" recently, and was awed by how little we really know about how people used to live on a day to day basis. It also occurred to me that, while I write a whole lot of interesting (or otherwise) things in my blog, no one knows what a typical day at the farm is really like. So, here goes. A description of a typical day at the farm ... from my perspective. (And just to be clear - this is a typical day now, post chemo. Before the whole cancer thing, life was a whole different kettle of fish.)

I wake up. Must be day, because there is daylight coming in through the ensuite window - one of the few windows where we don't draw the shutter at night. For exactly this purpose - so that when you wake up you can tell whether it's day or night. I jump out of bed, get a drink, take my homeopathic remedies, and jump back into bed. It's 7:30am. I lie in bed, thinking that maybe I still need more rest, but after 20 minutes I decide I am wrong.

I get up, get dressed and have breakfast. Very quietly of course, because the rest of the household, that is husband and Sabina, is asleep. If luck has it, they are still asleep at 9am, when I finally sneak out to ride my horse. I am back in the house (having ridden said horse), at 11am. By this stage, husband has had enough time playing with Sabina, and is absolutely busting to be set free. So off he goes, outside, engaging in farm maintenance and innovation tasks.

Sabina and I have a snack, and then I survey the situation I have been left with. Sometimes the guinea pigs need to be taken out, other times I might engage in a few small tasks such as throwing out a dead mouse and resetting the rat zapper, or cleaning a shelf in the pantry (yes, from mouse droppings).

At 12:30pm I start preparing lunch, which is usually ready at 1pm or so. Lately, husband has become pretty good with his timing, and is usually milling around the house by this time. On a good day he even comes in and sets the table. On a bad day, I have to get out the front door and ring the big fire bell.

By 2pm lunch is eaten. Sabina and I go for a 20 minute lie down, and husband cleans up after lunch. Then husband heads back to his farm tasks. When the alarm bell rings that our 20 minutes is up, Sabina and I usually have giggle and tickle time. Then we head out to ride Sabina's pony. Hopefully, I get to ride my pony at the same time. After riding, we feed the horses.

By this stage it's about 4:30pm at best. I gaze longingly at the garden, and see it screaming at me. I grab the required tools and dig in. Or slice in. Or saw in. At 5pm I realise that I should be heading inside to make dinner. Oh, but maybe I will just trim a little bit more. At 5:30pm I must finish. But of course I can't leave a mess in the garden, so I quickly clean up and put away my tools. By 6pm I rush inside. Dinner is now officially late, and I haven't even started yet.

I create a tornado in the kitchen, making salad, providing Sabina with a snack, slicing meat and preparing dessert simultaneously. We eat at around 7pm, then blissfully relax around dessert. Husband and Sabina head off to the bathroom while I clean up. At 9:30pm I dash off to the bathroom for my own shower, hoping that I can be in bed by 10pm. Quite often, however, I get caught up in some conversation with my husband, or some blog writing, and I end up in bed at 11pm.

I read a book for about half an hour, before turning the lights off.

Easter walk

It is our family tradition to do an Easter Walk on Easter Sunday, with the whole idea being that children find Easter eggs along the way.

Us adults? Well, we take our chocolate dark, melted and mixed with pure spirits (95% proof, yes). We drink it together with brunch, which is the first meal of the day, after an obligatory visit to church. Usually, we start our brunch with a solid swig of the said chocolate vodka, then proceed onto other delicacies such as hard boiled eggs, cold meats and salads. The brunch is finished off with a traditional Polish Easter cake called "Mazurek". (Think thin layer of short bread, covered with creamed caramel, mixed fruit and nuts. Rich.) After such a serving of food and alcohol every adult falls in a heap on a bed, any bed, and is rendered helpless, and often asleep, for about an hour. Maybe two.

When the adults finally stir, we go for an Easter walk. At last the kids get a chance to get their dose of chocolate. (Don't get me wrong. The kids do get a dose of chocolate at brunch. But this is very modest by modern standards.)

We head out on our walk with pockets full of chocolate eggs, while Sabina sports an empty backpack. At the very entrance to the walk, on a fence post, she finds a golden chocolate egg. With huge excitement, she puts it into the backpack, and slows the entire walk down to a crawl as she scans the ground for more eggs.

We walk along patiently behind her, and as I am last, I drop an egg here and there. Fingers crossed that they will still be here on our way back.

The walk takes us into a rain forest with tall trees, and shady ferns. As Papa points out the trees to Sabina, a couple of eggs roll onto the footpath. Sabina squeals with joy, and adds them to her collection. Deer tracks, ferns, and the creek provide another useful distraction. Sometimes we just throw the eggs while walking along behind her. Every egg is greeted with unparalleled excitement, and a commanding "stop! Everyone stop!".

There is an added level of difficulty when throwing eggs at random. The track we are following has been recently visited by a couple of horses. So it's important that the eggs don't land in a pile of reasonably fresh horse droppings.

Eventually we turn back and while the egg hunt is now officially over, we still manage to find a few eggs. We even manage to find a chocolate bunny. Amazing.

Kilos and shots

Recently I have been whingeing about all this weight I've been stacking on, while still claiming I could do a well posed shot. Check out the said shot.

I admit though, it would have looked better with that blonde wig.

Operation GP

 

 
Over the whole year we agonised whether to get Sabina a pet, and what to get her. In our case this is a dillema as my husband is allergic to cats and dogs. Possibly rabbits too. So to be on the safe side we were leaning towards an outdoor pet. But, maybe something that can be brought indoors every now and then.
 
For a while we were leaning towards chickens, then it was rabbits. Then I got cancer and all bets were off. As my treatment progressed, the pet question popped up again. I asked Sabina what was most important about a pet to her. "Holding and patting", she said. So we decided on guinea pigs. Two females. A Christmas present for Sabina; and a total surprise. And so "Operation GP" was born.

Secret flatpack packages arrived. Sabina would walk around them querying what they were. I would respond "I don't know." Then the hutches and cages were constructed while Sabina was at school, and quickly shipped off to other destinations - like the grandparents'.

We would make various phone calls to family and friends getting information about guinea pigs, how to care for them, etc, always referring to the little creatures as "GP". In the evenings I would sit at my computer, itching to write about progress of "Operation GP", but resisting, in case the news "gets out". Having resisted the itch, I would scan the internet for available guinea pigs.

Finally I found one I liked. I gazed at it for two days, before showing it to my husband. He thought she was so cute that I should call the seller immediately. Then Sabina came over. She gazed longingly at the photos of the guinea pigs on the computer "Oh guinea pigs!". "Yeah. Which one do you think is the cutest?", I asked. She pointed to the GP I had been gazing at for two days. "Oh so cute! Hey lets play with your toy dog", I ran off to the play room.

Needless to say, the said guinea pig was bought. I picked it up and just fell in love with it. It was sitting quietly in the workshop when Sabina came home from school. It was still a week before Christmas, and that evening the GP was shipped off to Oma and Opa's - who took loving care of it, which included hand feeding.

In the meantime it was just so hard to keep it all quiet. At one point I asked Sabina "So, what sort of pet do you think you would like?". "Mama, I have changed my mind. I don't want a pet any more. Papa is allergic to cats and dogs, and it wouldn't be fair on him. And I really think I would like either a cat or a dog." Oh. For a split second my heart sank. "That's what I thought until I held that little GP. Just you wait", I thought.

For Christmas day we went to Oma and Opa's. Straight away we took Sabina to the Christmas tree, and showed her the guinea pig. We sat her down, and put the guinea pig in her lap. She stroked it for a while. Then she put it back in the cage. She sat next to me for a couple of minutes then she said "Mama, it is real, isn't it? It's not a toy?"

The guinea pig was named Cissy and Sabina has grown confident in handling her, feeding her, and "making home" for her. But of course a guinea pig is never really happy by itself. So, tonight we picked up another guinea pig - Ginny - a diminutive of "Ginger", because Ginny is reddish brown.

Sabina stood in the kitchen looking at the two cages, with one guinea pig in each. She held my hand and said, "Mama, that is just the best present ever."

How much fun can you have in a brown wig?

So, I said that I bought a wig. Because ... because girls just want to have fun. Indeed. And the question arose, what colour? Well, how much fun can you have in a brown wig?

You can figure that one out for yourself, as you gaze at the photos. All I will say, is that when I went into the alcohol shop with my husband the other day, the guy behind the counter kept checking me out.

Hair Matters

My Mum and I went shopping together. Half Christmas shopping, half wig shopping.

Mum and I are serious shoppers. We're dangerous. We're just as likely to tell the shop assistant that an item looks shocking, as to throw dollars carelessly across the counter. Except that it's not dollars, it's credit card. But you get the drift.

So ... we bought the wig. Yes, after all that family discussion, and coming to the conclusion that really I don't actually need a wig, we bought the wig.

Why?!

Good question. Lots of answers.

Because my mum would like to see me with hair.
Because it looks more cultured at special family occasions.
Because it makes me look more normal when I just need to duck into the shops.

Because ... (and I guess this is the only real reason) ... girls just want to have fun!

And when this girl has fun ... there'll be food on the table tonight.

Pub Power

It's 5pm-ish and I am lying in bed, watching it rain. Rain? It's a serious downpour. And every now and then, it looks like someone is tipping a whole bucket out of the sky. Great entertainment.

"The power is out", announces my husband as he comes inside. "Oh", I mull the thought over in my head. Not surprising really. Whenever forces of nature get serious, it's pretty much guaranteed that the power will go out. "The whole region is out", comes an update from Pete. "Where's the number for the Toolshed? If they've got power, let's go out for dinner." "Oh", I ponder the idea of dinner at the Toolshed.

A few minutes later I manage to call the Toolshed - their power has just come back on, and yes they are cooking dinners. We're in the car and on our way. Doesn't matter that our power has just come back on as well. The pull of sitting at their rough cut tables, drinking beer from a jug, and devouring a mixed grill while rubbing shoulders with local men with big beards is far too strong.

While we're there, we even manage to fire up the juke box, and Sabina and I do some boot scooting ballet on the unpolished wooden floor.