Today was supposed to be a busy day getting things sorted before John returns to the UK for a short while and before our visitors arrive on Saturday but a spanner was thrown into the works when we had a power cut. On ringing the fault report line there was a recorded message to say that there was a power outage in the centre of Droushia apparently due to scheduled works which no-one seemed to know about and that there was also a major issue in Inea. We are on the edge of Droushia so our supply seems to come from Inea or mainly come from Inea because we are not always affected by a Droushia outage unless it is major.
Whilst the power was out John went down to the woodyard to get some wood so that he can build a sunbathing deck up on the roof above the terrace. We don't sunbathe but forget that visitors might like to toast their fronts AND backs so wanted somewhere they could lie down. The roof gets the sun all day so is an ideal spot but with temperatures currently tipping the mid 30s during the day I would advise anyone to exercise caution and be sensible about lying up there for more than a few minutes.
So here is the finished article - all ready and waiting for our guests - they will have the choice of sitting in the shade or frying in the sun!!! Since we tiled the roof terrace this is fast becoming a favourite place to enjoy our surroundings. The great thing is that the cats like to come up and join us when we are there and for now at least there is a great view down to the bay.
It has been exceedingly hot today and John worked like a trojan to get all his jobs done before he had to start thinking about getting to the airport. I couldn't really help too much as my summer cold is really hanging on and today I felt worse than I did previously - I have had it now nearly a week and am fed up because I just cannot stop sneezing - this has made my previously sore throat even more sore.
Anyway back to the electric or lack of it. The recorded message said that the outage was likely to be until midday but normally the electricity board errs on the side of caution so we weren't surprised when it came back sooner than that except that it came back but nothing seemed to be working properly. The fans in the bedroom were making very odd clicking noises and not rotating and the pool pump was making an horrendous noise and there was a smell of electrical burning coming from the pump house. I have got to say that having a husband who is so practical is worth its weight in gold because John immediately got the plug-in electric monitor and found out that we were getting severely under-powered and fluctuating current through the sockets. He switched everything off and got onto the electricity board. He spoke to someone called Marios who said he would advise we switched everything off until the issue had been resolved otherwise we were in danger of causing damage to electrical items. We pointed out we wouldn't know when it was resolved because we would have everything switched off - this logic seemed a little lost on Marios or at least lost in translation. I had visions of guests arriving to a big fat electricity-less house - just the sort of crisis you want when your live-in handyman is about to go away.
Pondering our situation John adopted the 'Don't Panic Mr Mainwairing' attitude and got on with the task in hand and quickly received a phonecall back from Marios telling us that he would get the 'technicians' (they are always called technicians and not engineers) to contact us direct when full power was restored. Within a very short period of time we had two 'technicians' arrive at our house to make sure that everything was ok. Apparently our outage was caused by the Inea problem which was major as someone had cut through a cable and the power was unlikely to be restored for another six hours by which time we would have left for the airport and I would have returned not knowing whether or not we had sustained any permanent damage. The 'technicians' who looked like the Super Mario Brothers in their rather fetching dungarees told us that they had restored our electricity from another source and we would be fine and indeed we were. Absolutely no idea which poor buggers were without their electricity so we could have ours and sad to say that on this occasion I really don't care - normality restored and no appliances seeming to have any permanent issue except for the black fridge that had started to defrost the freezer compartment and was leaking a bit of water across the floor.
I cannot tell you how relieved I felt - I could have kissed those two men - even in their dodgy dungarees. Fair play to AIK (the electricity board) they got us sorted out and even told us that had an appliance been affected we could have put in a claim.
John's reward for his hard work in the face of adversity was to relax in the pool before we made the final preparations for his journey to the UK. He had a late flight (which turned out even later as he was delayed) so we got everything together and called into Fitos for a light bite so he didn't have to pay exorbitant airport or airplane prices for a snack. Salad and dips and bread followed by village chicken for John and a Fitos breakfast for me with three soft drinks set us back the princely sum of €16.00!!
The forecast for John's stay isn't too good so I am posting a picture of the sunset which I drove into on my way back from the airport. This is a reminder of what he is missing! Once home the cats and I settled down for a bit of TV before an early night in the hopes that when I wake tomorrow this bloody summer cold will be on its way out.
Whilst the power was out John went down to the woodyard to get some wood so that he can build a sunbathing deck up on the roof above the terrace. We don't sunbathe but forget that visitors might like to toast their fronts AND backs so wanted somewhere they could lie down. The roof gets the sun all day so is an ideal spot but with temperatures currently tipping the mid 30s during the day I would advise anyone to exercise caution and be sensible about lying up there for more than a few minutes.
So here is the finished article - all ready and waiting for our guests - they will have the choice of sitting in the shade or frying in the sun!!! Since we tiled the roof terrace this is fast becoming a favourite place to enjoy our surroundings. The great thing is that the cats like to come up and join us when we are there and for now at least there is a great view down to the bay.
It has been exceedingly hot today and John worked like a trojan to get all his jobs done before he had to start thinking about getting to the airport. I couldn't really help too much as my summer cold is really hanging on and today I felt worse than I did previously - I have had it now nearly a week and am fed up because I just cannot stop sneezing - this has made my previously sore throat even more sore.
Anyway back to the electric or lack of it. The recorded message said that the outage was likely to be until midday but normally the electricity board errs on the side of caution so we weren't surprised when it came back sooner than that except that it came back but nothing seemed to be working properly. The fans in the bedroom were making very odd clicking noises and not rotating and the pool pump was making an horrendous noise and there was a smell of electrical burning coming from the pump house. I have got to say that having a husband who is so practical is worth its weight in gold because John immediately got the plug-in electric monitor and found out that we were getting severely under-powered and fluctuating current through the sockets. He switched everything off and got onto the electricity board. He spoke to someone called Marios who said he would advise we switched everything off until the issue had been resolved otherwise we were in danger of causing damage to electrical items. We pointed out we wouldn't know when it was resolved because we would have everything switched off - this logic seemed a little lost on Marios or at least lost in translation. I had visions of guests arriving to a big fat electricity-less house - just the sort of crisis you want when your live-in handyman is about to go away.
Pondering our situation John adopted the 'Don't Panic Mr Mainwairing' attitude and got on with the task in hand and quickly received a phonecall back from Marios telling us that he would get the 'technicians' (they are always called technicians and not engineers) to contact us direct when full power was restored. Within a very short period of time we had two 'technicians' arrive at our house to make sure that everything was ok. Apparently our outage was caused by the Inea problem which was major as someone had cut through a cable and the power was unlikely to be restored for another six hours by which time we would have left for the airport and I would have returned not knowing whether or not we had sustained any permanent damage. The 'technicians' who looked like the Super Mario Brothers in their rather fetching dungarees told us that they had restored our electricity from another source and we would be fine and indeed we were. Absolutely no idea which poor buggers were without their electricity so we could have ours and sad to say that on this occasion I really don't care - normality restored and no appliances seeming to have any permanent issue except for the black fridge that had started to defrost the freezer compartment and was leaking a bit of water across the floor.
I cannot tell you how relieved I felt - I could have kissed those two men - even in their dodgy dungarees. Fair play to AIK (the electricity board) they got us sorted out and even told us that had an appliance been affected we could have put in a claim.
John's reward for his hard work in the face of adversity was to relax in the pool before we made the final preparations for his journey to the UK. He had a late flight (which turned out even later as he was delayed) so we got everything together and called into Fitos for a light bite so he didn't have to pay exorbitant airport or airplane prices for a snack. Salad and dips and bread followed by village chicken for John and a Fitos breakfast for me with three soft drinks set us back the princely sum of €16.00!!
The forecast for John's stay isn't too good so I am posting a picture of the sunset which I drove into on my way back from the airport. This is a reminder of what he is missing! Once home the cats and I settled down for a bit of TV before an early night in the hopes that when I wake tomorrow this bloody summer cold will be on its way out.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.