Water from above, but not from below

The forecast has been for sun all week, but the sky was a bit grey this morning and it's just started spitting. A pity as Tim had started cutting the grass at the back - a two-hour job in all, and had only done about a quarter of it when the rain started. Only a few drops so far, but of course it's not a good idea to use an electric lawnmower in the rain even though it has a surge protector thing. I was going to do some weeding this afternoon too, but perhaps not after all.

Our mains water is off at present. This used to be a regular feature of Cyprus life until a new desalination plant was built about three years ago. That was followed by some very wet winters, so the reservoirs are now full rather than almost empty. Theoretically we have water on all the time (it used to be just twice per week) but every so often the mains tap stops working without any warning.

I should perhaps explain that we have two different taps in the kitchen. One regular hot/cold mixer tap which is sourced from our tanks, and one that's directly from the mains. In general people drink the mains water, but tank water is used for washing up, for the washing machine, and also for the bathroom. So we're not without water entirely - the tanks still have plenty. And we still fill up plastic bottles with mains water for convenience - not as many as we used to in the days when the mains was sometimes off for three days in a row, but five or six. However we tend to forget to fill them as we take the mains water for granted, meaning that this morning when it went off there were only two bottles of drinking water. That's three litres in all, so assuming the mains comes on again before the evening we'll probably be all right.

Still, it meant that I didn't do the load of laundry I was planning to do this morning (the washing machine takes 60 litres in all so I didn't want to use up that much tank water, just in case....) and I suppose that's all to the good in view of the rain.

Daniel had another theatre performance this morning, at a school in Nicosia. He got back about 2.00pm, had a quick bite to eat, and then rushed out again for the 'stage combat' class he attends at the theatre. He's tired already... yesterday morning might have been peaceful, but in the afternoon he went to his art class, stayed late talking and then had to rush back to eat at great speed before rushing out again to his music theory class (he's taking the grade 5 theory exam in the spring which will then allow him to take instrument exams higher than grade 5). After that he decided not to go to the town band - they're marching on Friday for a national day and he finds that very dull - but instead went to a meeting at our church run by a group called YWAM.