28.5!!!

That's the number of hours we been without electricity in the last 48hrs !!!!!

Tuesday was the typical African Summers Day - stinking hot, muggy and not a breath of air (no complaints there then eh?) Then 5pm the sky darkened and the torrential rain, thunder and lightning struck and I mean literally !!! There was a loud bang towards the top end of the estate and by 6pm we were plunged into darkness !!! (funny how we were just about to start making the tea, and I had actually gone mad and decided to bake some Cinnamon Biscuits !!! experimenting for Christmas, and mum had JUST put the kettle on for a cuppa!!!)

Needless to say we packed everything away ... put on our coats and went out for food ... well we know how slow the electricity department are at fixing things here!!! (understatement of the year!!! It's going to be VERY interesting next year 2010 World Cup Soccer and the incompetence of the services here !!! wonder if FIFA will want a refund PMSL)

We came home after our supper ... knew there was no point in rushing cos it was still pouring with rain and there was no way the electricity would be fixed so soon... so we were all in bed fast asleep by 8.30pm !!!

Usually you get woken about 2am when the electricity is restored and the gate alarm goes off ... this didn't happen we woke up as usual Wednesday morning and STILL no power !!! Wow this had to be a bad one !!! Seems it was ... the lightning blew up a sub-station and half the cables out of the ground !!!

T.G. for Wimpy - stocked mum up with her tea for the morning as I had to go to the Year 6&7 Prize Giving Assembly ... the heat had gone out of the air so it was much cooler ... and I'm told more tolerable than the assembly the day before ... The ceremony was lovely ... the kids did a couple of music ensembles etc ... very nice ... no Carol Singing which meant it didn't feel like Christmas but hey !!! The kids were all very proud of their achievements ... it is so nice to see them being recognised for all their hard work.

Of course when I got home we still had no electricity ... so darn it off out to lunch and more tea for mum (tough life but someones' gotta do it !!!) BUT when we got back at 4pm and there was still NO Power this was getting a bit much !!! (no we don't have such a civilised society that we can claim from the electricity department for the loss of food etc... due to their incompetence, I'm so glad I didn't have too much in the freezer ... well no point stocking up for Christmas just yet as we are going away from Friday for a week!!!)

I phoned June to find out if they had power and thankfully they did, so mum, Kelsey and I packed our dinner in a bag, as well as the cinnamon cookie mix and we spent the evening with June & Irena ... ate dinner together and baked Christmas Cookies ( That's what friends are for eh?) We left their house at 9.30pm and on our drive home which is less than 10mins !!! we hit another THUNDER STORM ... you'd swear it had never rained in a month ... meanwhile it's never stopped and we got home to yet again total darkness .... FINALLY at 10.30pm the electricity came back on = 28.5 hours later ... ONLY IN AFRICA

Well Paul just sent me a text message he and mum's surprise visitor have arrived safely at JHB airport ... I'll tell you more about mum's surprise visitor later ... OOOOO it's sooo exciting !!!!