It's raining in Johannesburg

It's been rainy and cold in Johannesburg since Friday. Normally I love cold, dismal weather (seriously, I'm not being sarcastic) but not when the power's out. Because it means I can't have tea!


Yesterday, a vast section of the city had no power. We were unfortunate to be part of the affected area. It lasted nearly an entire day - went off yesterday 9:25 and only came on around 3 or 4am this morning.

Can you believe my laundry was about 5 - 10 minutes from done when the power went out? Very annoying.

So what did we do?

Well, my cleaning lady was here so she did everything she could without electricity (no ironing or vacuuming) and so did I.

1. packed lunches and breakfasts for the week
2. went out for lunch and supper & enjoyed lovely, long conversations with Dion
3. bought a Rod Stewart CD (and a Ricky Martin one) and picked up my tickets for the concert
   
4. read, read and read some more
   
5. went to church
6. completed my tax return (South Africans, the deadline for manual submissions is 21 Nov)
   
7. did some goals planning for next year
8. finally registered to vote after 3 text messages reminding me to do so
   
9. analysed a survey I did recently for my mailing list
10. made lots of phone calls to catch up with friends
    

see the temperature in my car? 14.5 degrees (winter weather!) and clearly I was listening to the Ricky Martin CD :)

Today's been laundry, laundry and more laundry and of course, lots and lots of tea!

On the bright side, I am super focussed so am flying through my computer stuff :)

P.S. Get ready for the show me your desk challenge on Wednesday. Mr Linky will be up at 8am SA time (1am EST)

Menu plan 21 Jan 2008, cleaning and load-shedding

How are you all doing?

Cleaning lady
Eureka! For the moment we have a cleaning lady. She came on Wed and again today, and will be coming on Mondays as her regular day.

She is not Bea (!) but I'm hoping it's just training issues because that I can deal with. Although I do have to tell her obvious things like "please fold the dishcloth on the dishrack when you're done with the dishes".

I'm not complaining because that mountain of ironing is basically a molehill now :) Yesssss!

Load-shedding
Did you read my post on the power outages we're going to be having for the next 5 - 7 years in South Africa?

It is now day 12 and since I wrote that post, I am amazed at how I'm changing:
1. I mentioned that I'm getting super-focussed...
2. I am becoming really grateful for small things. Yesterday we had power the whole day and it was SUCH a blessing.
3. I am becoming flexible and using "no power" time to whiz around the house and do anything I don't need power for, so that when the electricity is on, I only have those tasks left.

This week's menu
Our area has load-shedding from 4 - 6:30pm on Mon, Wed and Fri so those days are now easy or freezer meals!

Monday
Stir-fried beef, veggies and rice from the freezer

Tuesday
Dion's night... and The Apprentice - yesss!

Wednesday
Sausage, spinach and potato one-pot

Thursday
Pasta with kidney bean sauce, topped with cheese

Friday
Hot dogs, chips and salad

Please visit Laura for more menu plans.

How to be organised despite Johannesburg load shedding

Today is the 9th day of rolling blackouts in South Africa. They say that this is going to happen for the next...wait for this... 5 – 7 YEARS!

I don't understand all the technicalities but basically, they can't supply all the power we need, so they are load shedding in different batches of suburbs every day.

If you live here, you are guaranteed to be without power for at least 2 hours every day.

I only found out two days ago while listening to Radio 702 that Eskom put a schedule on their website showing which suburbs will be affected and when, but the callers highlighted the fact that they are not sticking to the schedule.

If the schedule says from 3 – 5pm, the power outage is lasting for an additional 2 – 3 hours in many cases.

Businesses are losing lots of money and because the traffic lights are out in whichever suburb you happen to be driving through at the time, people are taking HOURS to get home. And in Johannesburg, we have an afternoon summer rainfall pattern, which also doesn't help because everyone drives like maniacs in the rain.

I was at a friend's place yesterday. Her husband phoned to say he'd left work at 4:30 and hoped to be home by 8pm! Three and a half hours, people!

Anywayyyy, I said all that to say this:

Over the last week, I have learnt a few tricks to keep me from tearing out my hair:

1. I have candles ready in all the rooms and passages throughout the house (with matches in two places) so when the power goes out, I don't even blink. I just calmly walk to the nearest spot and start lighting away. Just call me Florence Nightingale ;)

2. I don't leave anything out that I could possibly trip over – shoes and handbag come to mind.

3. I am phoning ahead before I go anywhere to check if my destination has power. Of course it could still go out while I'm on my way but I'm avoiding as much frustration as possible. E.g gym, visiting my friend (the day before neither of us had power so we had to postpone our coffee date)

4. I have back-ups for meals and am cooking double when the power is on. Last night, all I had to do was take some food from the freezer and heat. 10 minutes to get supper together.

5. I am stocking up on food we can eat cold. E.g. earlier this week when I got home and the power was out, I assembled a pasta salad with cold meats.

6. I am ultra-focussed when at the computer because I know the power could go off at any time. And of course, I am pressing Save all the time!

If you've ever had regular power outages, what are some tips you can give me and my fellow South Africans?