Canada Day - Red & White & ....... Blue?

Canada Day dawned overcast and foggy! Another typical day in our Nova Scotia weather lately. (We were blue.) Except that was the only typical thing about the day!

Around 10:30 that morning, as I was preparing my contribution to the pot luck dinner we were going to that evening, we lost our power! Boom, bang, lights out! Everything out actually. The guy we had hired to cut down some of our dead trees had decided to work on Canada Day as he was so far behind. ( Part of that was my fault because I kept saying, " Well while you're here, could you get rid of this one and that one?" and being the nice fellow that he is, he said yes.) Anyway, one of the trees by our upper driveway was quite rotten and when he started cutting it, the top broke off and fell smuck! right in the middle of all the power, phone and cable lines coming into our house. Pulled them right out of the house and off the power pole across the street. Lines were everywhere. Big tree top covered much of them. Huge mess! Finally with the help of our neighbour he got the tree chopped up and moved but could do nothing about the power and utility lines.

Next he had to call Nova Scotia Power to come. Did we know that when power lines come down as a result of something you did, you were held responsible and could be charged a huge fine? Well we didn't and (he was blue) because he did! All the work he did for us and he could be fined more than the job was going to cost if they determined that he had been careless. Plus we needed an electrician to do the re-hooking of wires to our house. Fortunately he had an electrician friend who came out right away, but couldn't do anything till today because of the holiday. Apparently the pipe the wires go into on our house no longer were acceptable and wouldn't pass inspection, so he needed to replace all that as well. So here we are without power, telephone, internet, tv and water for at least 24 hours! ( We were blue!)

We did go out to our Canada Day party last night and had a great time. Good food and friends and laughs! ( I forgot to mention that he lent us his generator to keep our fridge and freezer going and a couple of lights, so that was good.) We were able to read and relax a bit before bed. I tried knitting on John's socks, but between the boring pattern and the gray colour, I really needed TV to keep me entertained whilst I worked on them, ( I was blue), so I read my book about Handpainted Yarns and patterns for same.

This morning John calls our cable/internet/telephone provider to explain the situation and get someone out here this afternoon to restore our services. Imagine the look on John's face when the guy on the phone told him that someone would be here by Tuesday of next week!!!! (The air was blue!!) Totally unacceptable and just not going to have it. We even threatened to switch to the dreaded competition ( from whom we had already switched because of the dismal service)! Then I remembered that our neighbour on the other side of our square worked for the cable company and I called his wife who called him and he called us and they arrived around 4 and by 4:40 we were up and running.

Poor John had to cancel his golf game in the valley today to stay home and look after things. ( He was blue.) I had a couple of appointments and had to be gone most of the day and got here just as the cable truck did! So John had to carry the load on this one. He did manage to get much of the lawn mowed and that was a good thing!

I will say I am glad to see the last of that Canada Day and I really appreciate having all my utilities back. Running water in particular. And you truly don't realize how much you use things, until you don't have them for a while!

So now I can watch Wimbledon and Roger will be ok to play his semi-final tomorrow, knowing that I am here and rooting for him! No one is blue at our house anymore!