soccer mad

Sunday morning, I was woken by the rain.  I’m not sure what time, it was still dark outside, so before 6.  It didn’t take much as the power was off, so no fan; it was therefore warm and stuffy in my room.  I fought it though, successfully actually, probably because the rain had cooled the two external walls of my room.  When I could fight it no longer, the middle-aged man bladder thing, it was still raining, and there was still no power.  I went over to the switchboard and reset it, which normally does the trick, and there was power.  Ish.  Enough for a light in the bathroom, but not enough to boil the kettle for my morning cuppa (aka breakfast).  The rainfall was hampering the solar charging, and the generator is only for operation use (the ovens in the P&O Department), so breakfast doesn’t qualify.  With such limited resources, I couldn’t justify an hour on the generator to myself anyway.  So I waited.  And waited.  And waited.

I think it was almost 11 by the time I finally managed to boil the kettle and let my PG Tips steep for the regulation 4 minutes.  Then add powdered milk.  With a fridge now, I do have the option for liquid milk (I hesitate to say ‘fresh’ as its UHT), but actually it’s a handy little routine I have: the malaria tablets live on top of the powdered milk tin, so easy to remember my one-a-day!

It was a very pleasant few hours though, sitting out on the P&O Training area, under an iron sheet roof, watching the rain come down (and boy was it coming down), and contemplating life.  All I had to achieve today was eat, drink and get a shower.  Work was optional: there is always something to do, but I had no deadlines, so other than to achieve the basics, it was truly lovely to be carefree for a while and sit watching the rain come down.

As I write this, it is coming on 6pm.  I did some work (obviously), checked in with #2 son, drove into town (Yumbe if you want to try google it), picked up some dinner for tomorrow (the Standard: tomato, red onion, green pepper) and my ‘secret santa’ gift for the staff do on Friday, and am having a ’cold one’ with dinner.  I am at the only place to get food that comes with a degree of confidence in the hygiene.  A mile away from any form of standard (if there even was certification out here), but I don’t think too hard about that, as it is my only source of protein, aside from the daily lunchtime offering of ‘rice and beans’.

And aside from the food I am enjoying, its actually like a city centre sports bar: screen #1 has Everton-Chelsea live, screen #2 Luton-Manchester City.  And the crowd just went quiet.  Everton scored against the ‘room favourites’ Chelsea.  They are soccer mad here; but only the ‘big’ teams – the Manchester’s, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea.  Sorry the other teams, you are all great.  Just not here.