here is the long and short of it:

our power went out 2pm friday. with no electricity we had no access to the internet, tv, or any source of news. our water heater is electric, so no hot showers. so is our stove, and the microwave is of course out of commission, so no hot food. actually, no cold food either, as the fridge was dead. also, no kettle = the complete inability to even have a hot cup of tea, which, as you chinese and british readers might agree, was possibly the worst thing of all.

old technology, new technology: nels makes use of his laptop battery to the very last.

our apartment was leaking water into the lounge, and at points where the storm was particularly heavy, the rate at which the seepage happened meant that the little dam of towels that we built in an effort to stop the water from encroaching further into our apartment became so quickly saturated they had to be wrung dry every 15 minutes. we did this till about 3 in the morning, whereupon we decided to sacrifice half our good bath towels to reinforce the blockade, set the alarm for 7am, went to bed and hoped for the best.

repeated wringing of cold water from heavy towels makes your palms sting. a lot.

saturday came and went and we still had no power. we had quick hot showers, trying to stretch out the use of whatever hot water remained in the tank. we managed to get out to erina fair for a hot lunch, the newspapers, and whatever necessities we could buy that weren’t already sold out. (we got: candles, chocolate, cotton throw rugs to add to the living room dam. we didn’t get: ‘D’ sized batteries or a gas burner. there wasn’t any of either to be found in the whole shopping centre. no transistor radios left, either, but we managed to improvise by getting ourselves a little battery-powered shower radio.)

if i can’t have electricity i can at least have chocolate, dammit. lots and lots of chocolate.

as of right now our apartment is still without electricity and may remain that way for the rest of the week. help. however, looking on the bright side as one must, we have running water, our plumbing is fine, we are safe indoors and warm and dry. compared to other parts of the central and north coast, we are very lucky indeed.

the ses removing post-storm debris. this was just across the road from us. we’re so lucky no trees came crashing in/onto our apartment.

how it is that i’m managing to post this has to do with a stroke of luck we had this afternoon. just as we were preparing to pack our bags and flee to sydney for the rest of the week, we found that power had been restored to our neighbours, as well as the the general building. therefore, with the aid of some very long extension cords, we have been able to draw electricity from the sockets outside to power a few things. so while our stove and water heater still don’t work, we have access to the internet, the use of our computers, and the kettle! so we can make tea! many many cups of hot, hot tea!

we still have to brush our teeth by candlelight though.

tomorrow morning our neighbour is going to get me into her gym on a guest pass so i can have a long, hot shower.

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