Today and Yesterday

The heat wave is over till next time.  It wasn't too bad.  Two days of sweat.  This morning I was woken by a cool breeze and it's still blowing the curtains this evening.  Yesterday we had the fan going full blast in the bedroom for our siesta.  It was a slippery, steamy hour till we gave up and shuffled out to the terrace for an hour of a zombi like slump.  It took quite an effort to rise from my torpor long enough to make 2 glasses of very cold coffee.  

I make ice-cubes from strong filter coffee made in the cafetière.  And this year we have a frappé machine which instantly whips up the coffee, water and sugar into a few inches of coffee cream.  Almost as good as  our barista (local yokel) makes down at the cafe.

K was given the frappé  machine when one of the cafeterias revamped.  It sits on our bench, a big old thing but a quick buzz is all it needs.  

I really shouldn't write about this economic depression at all.  There are so many things we have to be thankful for.  

Lunch yesterday was a macaroni salad, mediterranean style.  I retrieved a block of tomato sauce from the freezer. It was made from last year's tomatoes with oregano, mint and basil and chopped capsicum. That defrosted almost instantly in the heat of the kitchen. I mixed that into the macaroni twists with chopped fresh tomato and cucumber. It would have been fine just like that but I mixed in a tin of tuna too. Overkill. Simple  is better. A piece of bread and a glass of water. We ate it outside where it was slightly cooler, though cool is not a word I would have used yesterday .

Outside in the road a water pipe had burst. Burst over a week ago. The entrance to next doors property was a sea of mud, the road had turned a slimy green. K had phoned and raised his voice to our local councillor, a friend who works for the municipality, a plumber who does work for the council and half a dozen others. So had all our neighbours. Well they finally came yesterday, dug up the road and I presume changed a pipe. The water was bubbling out of the tarseal like a fountain. Naturally they plugged their extension cord into our power plug. Could hardly say 'no'. 

The water boys are over worked rushing from one broken pipe to another.  That was a lot of water lost though through the long wait for repairs.

K also sorted out our phone bill. He doesn't raise his voice to the phone people because they record the conversation.

We have been receiving a double bill since February because when we replaced our router they said they'd never received back the old router and billed us for it . Finally two days ago they cut off our phone. 

We could only make emergency calls. That's the home phone, which we hardly use.

K thought it had been sorted by a previous call two months ago. Well, it's sorted now. They turned the phone back on an hour later and now I'm waiting to see when they take the extra 60 euros off our bill 

All our bills are online now and we have an app for most of them so we can see immediately what's happening.

K today changed over our washing machine. We inherited one from a cousin that died two years ago. The house has been very slowly emptied. The nephews who inherited it are selling it finally.  The washing machine is virtually new. Nothing like the 30 year old one the K had fixed and was  going to last  forever. This one is digital woohoo. And it has a 15 minute programme. How's that for economy. The shortest programme on the old washer was one and a half hours.

Today we picked up our monthly medicine. I take one capsule for atrial fibrillation. It's subsidised thank goodness but has increased in price. Used to cost 9 euros but is now 19. But the full cost is 69euros. Can't complain there. There's a huge difference between 19 and 69.

A couple of months ago we got a petrol subsidy of 50 euros. Not much but every little helps. Now we are waiting to see if we can get an electricity handout.  

Nope. Can't complain. Actually I can complain and do complain. I'm human. But I shouldn't.