Our Power Company Provides A Far Too Medieval Experience
Well, this morning here at Kilmurry House, Disaster Cat was not Flying. In fact, she did not even really get a chance to get airborne before things started to get really weird. First, there was waking up early. First time 6am, then 7am finally gave up at 8am. Now I know that for most of the world, these are normal times. But when your husband tends to write (or in this case be making jewelry for a showing) until 4am, trust me, a six am wake up is not ideal time to face the day. I decide to get up at eight, look out the window and instead of just seeing the family dog in the yard, I realize that our friend A......., who works at the US embassy, is standing there. And I also realize that I, am standing in front of a curtinless window (who needs curtains when you live in the middle of nowhere wearing exactly...well...exactly the clothing I was born with..i.e. not much). I jump backward quickly, trusting that even if A........has seen me, he is diplomatically enough not to mention it. I imagine that folks in the diplomatic core get used to lots of strange experiences in life, so I won't mention it if he doesn't.
By now, I am waking up enough to remember that A.....is coming to make armor with house-mate. And since he only has Lief Erickson's day (as my husband the Viking calls it) or St. Brendan's Day (as Irish house-mate calls it) or Columbus Day (as the US embassy calls it) off; he will only be here for a few hours. So, he is coming at the unheard of hour at Kilmurry, 8 am in the morning. Actually, 8am does sometimes happen around here, but its usually either because someone forgot to go to bed, or because we are catching an early ferry crossing to a re-enactment event. Getting up that early to really DO SOMETHING, is quite a novel concept.
By now, I am awake, get dressed and go downstairs, and notice: WE HAVE A HALLWAY! And I didn't do it...nope this time it was the amazing Flying House-mate (aka The Lizard) who cleaned it all up. Or at least moved it up to the rest of the piles outside the bedroom doors on the upstairs landing. Which means the front hall looks clean and you can see the stair case. The same can not be true of the kitchen. I must confess that yesterday, after an entire weekend of feeding company, I did not "SHINE MY SINK" like a fly-lady is supposed to. No, secure in the knowledge that the nice lady who picks up twice a week would be in (and helped by the fact that my back is out at the moment) I just ditched it all and went to bed. Forgetting that we had both an eight AM house-guest arriving and not having received the notice from our friendly Electric Company that our power would be out for about nine or ten hours.
So, nice lady gets to house just in time for power to go off. At least this time, I got to make tea first, but just barely. Calling electric company results in 45 minutes on hold to be told that this was "A Planned Outage, You should have received a notice." This time we will receive one, at 2:30 PM on Monday October 11th...which is approximately five hours into the on-going power outage. I have no idea if this notification efficiency was due to the Electric Company or The Irish Mail Service. But whoever it was, also arranged the grayest, darkest, dullest day outside since the last "planed" power outage two weeks ago. And, we still didn't have any lamp oil.
Meanwhile, the guys are trying to work in a dark workshop, we run out of water to clean the house (no electricity=no pump) and husband needs to catch bus for Dublin for jewelry appointment. The Lizard and I go to drop him off at the bus and look at "hobs.." For those of you who have never heard of a "Hob," this is what most North American's would call a stove top. Except, it isn't connected to a stove, just the burners themselves. For some reason ovens and hobs tend to be separate over here. In any case, mine had finally died two days before. Which left me with a kitchen tally of: Broken Dish Washer, No Hot Water (without lighting a fire first), No House Heat and now: NO WORKING STOVE TOP!!!! Well, I have TOZ (Toz is the name of our turf stove...Toz is the opposite of our electric oven whose name is ZOT), but TOZ...is well..slow..very slow...not what you want to have to rely on for TEA and COFFEE first thing in the morning. Which, since we now had no electricity either, was not going to be made in either a coffee pot or by water heated in an electric kettle.
I managed to laugh to A.........about playing Pioneer Lady in my kitchen, but by the time the Hob died, I was getting pretty fed up. It was time to DO SOMETHING! Even if we couldn't afford to fix or replace everything at once, a tipping point had been reached. So, it was off to town for a new hob and a water heater element. Neither of which would work until the power came on, but hey, our friend "Merlin" had dropped by and he could install the stove..it helps to have friends who are part-time Wizards.
The trip to town went pretty well and we got back to find our house guests huddling in the kitchen. A kitchen that was dark enough to be a back drop for an Edgar Allan Poe reading...I fight back images of "Quoth the Raven Never More" out of my head and we give Merlin the Hob and The Lizard takes A........back out to the very Period workshop. It is a truly Period work experience as all "power" tools used, will now be the old fashioned sort. I guess its a traditional way of making a steel fighting helmet, but I'm not sure it was what A........had in mind when he came down to use our facilities.
Anyway, I left Merlin tinkering around in the kitchen coal mine (he had a head lamp in the car, so he looked lmore ike a demented Welsh miner than a Welsh wizard) and went up to the only lighted room in the house to read the paper. This was the frozen drawing room. Yes, I could have lit a fire, but that would have meant getting turf and other equipment, none of which I really felt like doing, for the same reason I wasn't doing any dishes. My unhappy back. Meanwhile, nice lady has gone home because she can not clean anything without water. She is going to come back tonight when the power is supposed to be back on. I go back downstairs, notice the kitchen keeps looking worse every time I see it, and mentally make a note to give Mrs. Nice Lady a bonus this week.
In fact, when she does show back up, at 5:30pm; the power is still not back on but never fear: She has brought over hot water from her OWN House! I am truly grateful and would not have thought of this. I have thought of heating water on the solid fuel stove, so that gives us enough to get started. The menfolk have by this time given up on the darkened workshop and have come back inside to sit around the table and chat..in the dark. I look over my shoulder but still don't see any ravens. Someone mentions that someone is selling a "Ghost in a Bottle" on e-bay...I wonder if there are a few hiding in the corners of my kitchen, if so can we sell them too? Then suddenly- LIGHT! We can see!
Merlin gets the hob going, after a brief panic before it is remembered that The Lizard turned the old one off at the fuse when it refused to turn off at all the night before. Fuse on and hob is working great. Its too late for the hot water heater, Merlin has to get home. So does A.........who I'm sure will have a few stories to dine out on about his typical day at Kilmurry House. If he was looking for a truly Medieval experience, I guess he got one!
Meanwhile, husband is back and museum gift shop wants to place big order...which is great! Things are looking up...if we can keep the electricity on long enough to cast the merchandise...
Keeping my fingers crossed and chanting with Ms. Scarlett..."Tomorrow Will Be Another Day!"
Stayed tuned...
Disaster Cat