Saturday 15th October, 2016                       1515

I think we can all accept the occasional power/water cuts for whatever reason. It’s part of life. There are times though when they start to really rankle. Chizhou was terrible for them - if it wasn’t a morning to evening planned outage for maintenance work (and they had those with annoying regularity, so much so I used to rant and ask why they couldn’t fix the damned system once and for all), then it was a campus substation going up in smoke or a rain/thunderstorm would knock it out. At least we were warned about the planned ones so we could make arrangements to spend the day in town or whatever.

Yesterday here I had no water all day. Oh I waited, waited with the bathroom tap turned on and a bucket underneath so the moment the water came on I would know. I would have showered at midnight if that was when it came back. But no, at two I surrendered and went to bed, hoping when I got up all would be normal once more.

It wasn’t. Brenda hadn’t answered my text last night and after half an hour she hadn’t answered the one I sent this morning either, asking whether I should go to an hotel because I wasn’t spending the entire weekend unwashed and unkempt, unable to wash dishes or cook. I thought ten o’clock was a reasonable time to ring her but nonetheless roused her from sleep. Well sorry! By now I had no wine left, I was down to my last cigar and I really wasn’t going out shopping looking like a homeless vagrant.

She made a call and rang me back. It’s only my building that is affected and they needed to do it because of the heating pipe replacements. Yes, I understand that but they went home at six last night and why didn’t they warn us first? I could have filled a couple of buckets so that at least I could have flushed the toilet. She had asked that but the only reply they gave was that they turned it back on at five last evening. Maybe to everyone else but not for me!

Did you go out? Yes for five minutes to the nearest shop but the tap was on and the bucket in place. They are lying. Are you sure? I checked all the taps at regular intervals until 0200 and even if it was only on for five minutes then surely my toilet cistern would have filled up? Lying simply serves to get my goat even more, admit you cocked up and my piqueometer settles back down from 8: boiling to 3: warm.

Just before noon I heard the joyous sound of water hitting the bottom of a bucket. A shower rarely felt so good and once I was clean and fresh and in case they turned it off again, I washed all the dishes and pots and filled some pans with water so I was guaranteed being able to cook dinner. The water is still on and I have a sneaky feeling I was the only one left dry last night.

My annoyance of course was exacerbated by the fact I was prevented from shopping yesterday. I had planned to buy plenty so as not to have to make the trip over the weekend. I hate the BRT at the weekend because I have to let anything up to ten buses pass by before one happens along where I can even get a decent amount of standing room, leave alone a seat.

Go to town though, I had to. The little shop that promised to have cigars today let me down and anyway the wine in BHG is 14.5y as opposed to 40y nearer home. I also needed bread and sultanas to make the bread pudding tomorrow. I also thought I would explore the back streets to see if at last I could get a haircut.

I wandered and wandered but only discovered a labyrinth of bars and clubs (worth knowing because they seemed to stock western drinks - for a price) but no barbers. With no e-bike I am severely limited as to what I can buy in one go (two wines and a litre of milk are heavy enough on their own so when you start to add spuds and the like……) given that there are loads of stairs to negotiate at the bus stops and I am not sure I will ever be able to leap them in bounds, my right hip has felt for some years now that it will eventually rebel against me. But I am NOT making that trip tomorrow!

It is roast pork tonight and omelette and chips tomorrow - I bought 20 eggs on offer for 17.8y. Come to think of it, I have that many I may need to start baking cakes in the bread machine, might have more success than I have had of late with bread!

Oh, and Ollivier is trying to become a Gendarme - God help France!