I’m writing this, off-line to be uploaded later, by the light of a hurricane lamp, in my underwear with rivulets of sweat running down my face, arms, neck, back and chest. Forgive the graphic image, especially if you’re having your breakfast or dinner while reading this. As you’ve probably gathered there’s a power cut; it’s the fourth in as many days. Two of them were short, just ten or fifteen minutes, but the one which started late on Tuesday afternoon lasted for four hours and so far this one has been three and a half. I rang the APUA so-called Customer Services helpline half an hour ago – by which time the power had been off for three hours – and they didn’t even know what the problem was. Consequently, they have no idea how much longer we’re going to be in the dark. I’m sending loads of positivity to the engineers working on the fault in the hope that it will be found, fixed and power restored very soon.**
Things haven’t been going well lately. Since I’ve been back on Antigua, which is four weeks now, I’ve only had full internet service for eight days. The rest of the time it’s been intermittent; I have a connection for ten minutes or so and then it drops for a couple of hours. Then it connects for perhaps half an hour and then it drops again. In fact, the connection drops more than a whore’s drawers. It’s very frustrating, because I can’t watch any of the TV programmes I download onto my iPad via filmon.TV but even more than that, it makes using FaceTime or Skype impossible so I can’t chat to the Daughter or the Sister or any of my friends and family in UK and other places. Consequently, I’ve been feeling quite lonely and cut off – not helped by the Fella Who’s Far Away actually being Far Away at the moment as he’s gone off to the States for his daughter’s graduation. Ah, bless him! He’s so made up; his eyes filled up with tears of pride every time he talked to me about her. And I don’t blame him! In a place where some men don’t take responsibility for their kids, he brought her up by himself and she’s turned into a wonderful young woman. I know that he will sob his heart out as he watches her take the final steps towards her goal of being a lawyer.
But meanwhile, I’m here in the dark tonight with no TV, no internet, sitting in the gloom of the hurricane lamp.
We’ve had a storm this evening, too, which has probably hampered the power being fixed. It had been a beautiful morning. I’d done loads of washing and as I was here waiting for the engineers to come and fix the internet – they didn’t come! – I decided to treat myself to a TennisFest watching the Madrid Open. I watched Djokovic go through to the quarters (Boo!), Murray get knocked out (Boo! Boo!) and Rafa Nadal go through to the quarters (Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!) with an extra Hooray as he beat Kyrgios in the process. As the end of the first set of Nadal’s match was drawing to a close I looked out and though it had got a bit dark so I decided to bring the washing in as soon as the set was over.
Too late!
By then it was teeming with rain and it hasn’t stopped since so I’m hoping the sun will shine tomorrow and that the weight of all the rain water won’t trail it on the ground meaning I’ll have to wash it again. It’s still raining too hard to go outside and get it and it’s dark now.
However, although this post might come across as a bit of a whinge, it isn’t really. The Daughter, who is a huge advocate of The Secret and the best manifestar I know, gave me The Magic by Rhonda Byrne as part of my birthday present and I’ve been working my way through it doing the daily programme of exercises to make Gratitude an integral, automatic part of my life. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it so far – I’ve only got three days to go. At the beginning I thought I’d never find ten new things to be grateful for every morning for a month yet it’s surprising how easy it’s been. And I’ve found that being grateful for what I have has made me more positive and forward-looking about my life and made me think just how much I’ve been given over the course of the years. It’s all quite amazing. And I’m giving thanks for where I’m going to be this time next year.
** The power finally came back on at 6am this morning – after 14 hours! And (whisper it) with it the internet.
