Back to normal again...I hope!

Well yesterday afternoon I made the trip down the hill to flick my switches and see if this would magically restore my power. I coincided the trip with collecting Bradley from school and although I didn't find him at the school I found him walking with his little umbrella on the route home. When we got home I braced myself, flicked all the switches down and up one at a time..nothing! Bradley tried it...also nothing! I could feel my hysteria rising again. 'I knew it wouldn't work!' 'Bradley get changed quick, we're going to the electricity dept'. We got there shortly before they closed but there was still a queue sitting waiting for their turn. I noticed a sign on the wall saying 'Tell us if our service puts a smile on your dial'. I told them it didn't and left them muttering.

When I eventually got to a consultant about 20 mins. later all she did was phone faults (which I could have done from any phone anywhere) and log a call for assistance. "Don't tell them you were disconnected or they wont come out". The faults guy asked me if I had pressed the button on the outside meter. "Its like a switch that sticks out below the box". I don't have that. We established that I had a different box and he logged the call. I left and went home determined to wait for the technician even if it meant not going back to work.

I parked at the bottom of my steep driveway where the meter is situated and told Bradley that I was going to try and find this so-called switch. I examined the meter box and the only thing I could find was a cute little snail slowly winding his way up the side of the meter box but I was sure that he wouldn't be happy if I pressed him!! There's a little swinging cover which covers the window through which the meter reading can be taking. I was pushing on this when all of a sudden the whole front panel of the box started sliding upwards. I kept pushing and lo and behold if there isn't a switch visible inside the box along with the wiring and various other indescribable objects of a nature variety. I pushed it up an wallah! I had power. Yay! I gathered Bradley up and went back up to work, phoned to cancel the fault callout and asked the guy who answered the phone if I could have a job at the Council since I had fixed my own fault. He wasn't amused!

So at least I know what to check now. You learn something new every day!

It's been a difficult week...

My electricity account is a month in arrears which basically means that I missed a payment and now pay the arrears amount to keep my service connected until I can bring the account up to date. I realised on the weekend that I had forgotten to phone and ask for an extension to pay but knew that they wouldn't disconnect me on the weekend. On my way through to work on Monday I stopped off and paid the arrears amount. I phoned to tell the relevant authority that I had paid and was asked to fax through proof of payment which I did and which went through at 7.51am on Monday, 26th. On Tuesday, 27th in the afternoon some time we were switched off and only discovered this when we all went home in the evening. Well we are somewhat prepared having been through 'load shedding' last year. Dael had already retrieved the gas braai from the garage which we use without the skottel attachment, just usually putting a pot of water straight onto the gas jets. We survived the night fine although with some irritation. When you have to light a candle to see at 5am and have to go to work without a nice hot bath, it causes some frustration especially since I rushed to pay to avoid just this situation.

When I got to work and phoned again the lady said that the proof of payment had not been received (?) but that the actual payment was now showing on my account and that she would put through a reconnection instruction. Imagine my complete horror when I arrived home last night to find that the electricity was still not on! And being that the authority closes at 4.30pm there was still nothing to be done. I had placed all food in the fridge and freezer in close proximity to the ice so luckily it was still frozen but I knew that it wouldn't be by the next day so everything (luckily only about 4 bags) had to be taken down the road to my mom's fridges (also overflowing) to be stored until the electricity went on. No baths again and Dael is working a dirty job where he needs to shower every day. Got to work and phoned in again. Accounts dept. advise reconnection put through. Reconnections dept. advise that power was reconnected yesterday and that I have to put down all my switches on my DB board and put them up again one at a time. And that I should know this because I have been disconnected before. But previously I didn't have to do this extra technical step because the power just went back on when reconnected. Go figure.

Anyway there's no one at home to do this so I will have to make a special trip down the hill to do this and see if I can restore power to my home at long last. We are also in the middle of a two day (so far) tropical downpour of rain as well which doesn't help. I suppose we should be lucky we haven't got snow! Hope to have good news to tell later - if not and these plebs have broken my electricity - I will just have to pretend that I am camping!

Well how do you like that?

The IT guys have cottoned on to the fact that I am blogging and following blogs during the day at work and they have blocked me from accessing any blog with the .blogspot extension in the address. What a cheek! I can still access the dashboard and therefore post to my blog but I can't read it or any others (apart from 3 that I follow that have different addresses) other than between 12 and 1pm every day. What I can do is open all the blog entries and read them and comment at my leisure during the afternoon. Where there's a will there's a way!

My weekend was of the frustrating variety:

- Had the boys cousin sleeping over. He phoned me and asked to sleep over because his parents were fighting!! He is hyperactive and nags and cajoles Bradley into various activities. He brings his Playstation with which Bradley is more than happy to sit and play with for hours but the cuz wants to skateboard down the road or go somewhere or do something. One visit he didn't even sleep at all the whole night. I told him after that - no sleep no visit. I don't want the kid wandering around the house when everyone else is asleep.

- My dad's sister and her hub were up from Cape Town this weekend and stayed at my parents house for the weekend. They are visiting family in the area and then catching a cruiseliner for a trip back to Cape Town (paid for by their kids for their 50th wedding anniversary). So that entailed a dinner on Saturday night and a braai lunch on Sunday, with reluctant kids in tow. All was peaceful until I was leaving the parents house on Sunday afternoon. Bradley and the cuz were playing a game of netball together. Dael arrived on the scene and wanted to join in. Bradley disagreed because they were already playing. Dael accused him of being selfish, grabbed the ball and threw it at Bradley's legs causing him to drop to the floor screaming and writhing. Enter mom on the scene imagining the worst. Big fight with Dael ensues with him defending himself and calling his brother a baby. I throw everyone in the car, scream off (poor car), fling out the cuz at his house still screaming at Dael and with the cuz's parents looking on in wide-eyed shock, race home and fling out the offender with a last few choice epithets. He is really going through a difficult phase at the moment. I remember going through similar with Robynne although not so physical but also that she had the attitude that I really didn't know what I was doing particularly with parenting the younger ones and that she had to 'assist' me with this. Dael in turn is going through the same stage and there's really only room for one boss in the house and that's definitely ME!

- I also tried to untangle the garden this weekend. I used the weedeater a bit until the line ran out. Couldn't find any more line. Decided to use the panga to at least chop the long grass and weeds a bit shorter. Pulled out head high blackjacks, chopped back 'alien's, hacked and hacked until it started raining again. I work until I feel second hand. I managed to chop my thumb at one stage (bad aim). The hand working the panga developed a blister which then opened. I have bruises on both inner forearms and not to mention sore muscles. But the worst part is what to do with the big pile of weeds and grass I cut - and I've only just started. I'm going to have to do a bit every weekend.

So that was my weekend sort of in a nutshell!

New day new problem!

Although not so much a problem as every mother's worst nightmare!

The background is that Dael has cellphone problems again (speaker and camera don't work and its not charging) although I don't think the cellphone is even a year old yet. So he decides to take his Bradley's phone. Bradley was using my new phone as he can get Mxit on it. I was using an old phone. So with Bradley walking home from school from Wednesday and with his brother using his/my new phone, I lent him my old phone so that I could contact him which left me without a phone.

However I needed my phone yesterday, so I decided to let him walk home from school without a cellphone even though I had some strong misgivings about doing so. Anyway it turned out that I had to run an errand and was in the vicinity of his school about 20 minutes after school had ended and was expecting to find him trudging home on the established route. I didn't find him! I travelled up and down the route, went home, went back to the school, spoke to the guys at the shop he goes past, went looking on alternative routes. Nothing! I was praying, stressing, trying not to cry. Then I phoned my mom. She freaked out, threw down the phone, jumped in her car, phoned my dad who was across town and stuck in traffic. He started worrying. My dad is 74 and my mom 67 and they were also really worried. We met up at my house and then went off in different directions. I was stopped at a stop street near my house just after this and saw my dad sailing past with Bradley in the passenger seat. What a relief!

He decided with all his 13 year old wisdom that since I wouldn't know about it (no cellphone, no brother at home, mom at work) that he would go straight from school with his friend on another route to his friends house and that was where they were. My dad found him walking on his way home to get changed, have something to eat and SKATEBOARD BACK to his friend's house after having left a note for mom at 4pm in the afternoon. All this happened in the space of an hour and a half. I think I have about 50 more grey hairs. And on top of it he blamed me 'because if you didn't come to fetch me no one would have known'. Needless to say we have had ANOTHER little chat about me knowing where he is at all times. And he has to write letters of apology to his gran and grampa for causing them to worry. Ah the joys of parenting!

Doesn't this face just say it all?