More on the outage (not strong enough to be outrage!)

Thinking about our power cut, I realized what a privilege it is to have a copious supply of hot water. A bath, a shower... we can luxuriate whenever we want.

Coming from Africa, water is a resource I'm always aware of and this year, when we had two summer months with a garden watering ban, reminded me of when we moved into our newly built home in Constantia, Cape Town. This was on an old vineyard and that spring we planted a rose garden of maybe thirty bushes (yes, we had enough land for that!). Then came the summer watering ban. Luckily, we were allowed to use buckets. So each bush needed a bucket a week to survive. I can tell you my arms grew pretty strong. All that trekking back and forth from a single tap on the side of the hill... but those roses were worth it.

The second thing the outage brought to mind was the lack of toast. I actually don't eat bread for breakfast, but my husband does. Still, I remembered my years of living in residence at the University of Cape Town. The food was really good in those days before outsourcing brought a decline in quality. The one thing we didn't get was toast. When I went home for the vacations toast was my delight and felt like such a treat.

Yes, it's often the little things...