The last blog was the week from hell and this one could be 'What a bl**dy awful weekend' but, because I'm a generally optimistic type, it isn't. It has been an awful one though. It's Sunday morning and I am hoping things are on the up now.
It started on Friday night. I took Alice to Youth Band practice, we leave at 4.30pm. Harriette had gone in to Matamata after school to shop for a dress (had an 18th birthday party on Saturday night). She was meeting Eric at the car parked behind his office at 5pm. She called in at 4.30pm and he said he'd be done by 5pm. At 4.55pm Eric was asked to swear an emergency affidavit. He went out to tell Harriette but she had popped round to the bank (having left a message attached to the rear view mirror. However, Eric did not get in the car so did not see it. He got cross that she had cleared of without telling him! He then went back to office, Harriette returned and waited... and waited....... She repeatedly texted Eric but, of course he did not reply. So, by the time he emerged at 6pm she was pretty cross (understandably). I am guessing they rowed on the way home. Harriette had bought hair dye but when she went to use it there was no water. Eric then had to investigate this in the dark. Someone, we assumed the neighbour Ian, had turned off the water pump. He turned it back on but there was still no pressure so we had to be left with no water overnight. In these situations we use buckets of water from the pool to flush toilets and have bottles and bottles of stored water. When Harriette relayed the office mix up to me later Eric went balistic at her. Alice then sprung to Harriette's defence (she should be a human rights lawyer, she's a great one for springing to the defense of someone she feels has been treated unjustly) and a huge row followed.
I have been reading Jodi Picoult's Handle with Care which was hard to put down so ended up reading until 1.30am. At 4am Eric woke up feeling he had something in his eye. The next 30 mins was spent me trying to see what it was - nothing. He was in a lot of pain and huffed, puffed, tossed and turned through the next 2 hours. We finally fell asleep about 6.30am and woke at 9am. So, so far, big row, no water, no sleep and Eric with a very painful eye.
Saturday morning we got up and Eric set to the task of sorting out the water problem. When he turned the water on again he could see a water fountain from the front paddock. He fixed that and all seemed to be OK. I took Harriette to work (before the water had been fixed so she was still cross as she could not shower) and did a huge supermarket shop and things seemed to settle down. I replaced the tyre on my bike (it had burst 6km into my first bike ride of the year the previous Sunday), and finished my book. All was good until I went to make tea late in the afternoon. No water!!!!! So, poor Eric had to go back out and start all over again trying to work out the problem. He thought he'd sussed the problem but did not have the required items to repair so we had to call out the emergency plumber. We always end up calling them at a weekend when the call out fee is huge!! It's like Alice, she only ever gets really sick at a weekend. Before he arrived I had to pick Harriette up and convey to her that we did have water but now it's off again! Poor girl, it was really turning out not to be her weekend! When the plumber finally arrived Eric had relayed a whole new load of alkathene piping to by-pass the area he thought was a problem (some underground piping) and they attached it to the water tank. Still no water and they could not work out the problem was. So, back to basics, we walked the pipes again and found a separated joint and water pouring in to the paddock. Eric had not checked this in the afternoon (normally the first thing we would do) as he had done this in the morning. So, we had a call out fee for something we could easily have sorted ourselves. Anyway, at least we had water. Harriette, and the rest of us, got showers and we finally got out for the evening. Harriette to her 18th and Eric and I to a 21st for one of the girls in his office. I was not looking forward to it. Eric hates parties, loud noise and won't dance! On top of that he is tired and grumpy. It actually wasn't too bad, except for the speeches. The sound system did not work well and so lots of people at the back were talking which made things worse. On top of that the father gave far too many details about the twins conception, and the twins friends were only able to relay events of drunkenness that went into a cringingly awful detail. Note to self, what not to discuss at Harriette and Alice's 21sts. Anyway, Eric had a good few beers and lightened up significantly so was not hurrying me out the door at 10pm. In fact Harriette texted at 11pm asking us to pick her up.
This morning I was meant to be up at a reasonable time as Liz and Kenny were coming by early to pick up Liz's car that she left here on her way to Auckland. Liz was taking one son on to Rotorua for a football game and Kenny would carry on home with the other 2 boys so would not be in a rush. They are Sottish, have lived here, well in Whakatane for a lot longer than we have. Kenny is an ex-cop and now runs a kayaking business and does some work with youth (I think, not totally sure on that). I think Eric and Kenny would get on well. They missed each other on Thursday when Kenny collected Liz and so I thought we could have a coffee and chat this morning. Didn't happen though as we woke to find they had already been and gone! Oh well, another time maybe.
