Less than Ordinary ...

This week was less than ordinary!  So much so that I considered changing the title of the blog for a while. 

My mood, unfortunately didn't improve much either, and my beloved blog seems to have stagnated!  

This week

• They did some work on the road that left us without power on and off for almost 3 days.  The worst of this came with a 24 hour cut, and meant we spent the first entire night ever without any power.  This wouldn't bother me at all really, except the precious Prins and Princess have an amazing ability to wake often in the pitch dark and scream for mummy who lies with them until they fall asleep again.
  
• In the first few hours of that first powerless day, we ran out of water in the tank, and had no power to pump.  So it meant we had a day without any water as well as without power.
• Our cat had four beautiful kittens one night in a storm, on our outdoor sofa.  Lovely excepting the blood and guts that I feel will forever be embedded into the stuffing of the cushions!
• The huge and personally made mat cover that I washed and hung out on the line, was stolen, hopefully by some poor person who will use it as a cover in the rainy season.
• The kids both had giardia, and Esther had high fevers through the nights. If you have ever seen, smelt, or generally experienced giardia, you would know that this is NOT a nice illness! 
• A tiny scratch on my own foot got amazingly infected, made my whole foot swell and needed antibiotics for a week.
• Tobias, who has been almost completely potty trained for about 6 weeks, decided that peeing on the floor this week was much more fun.
• A good friend who is 32 weeks pregnant, got really sick and worried that she may go into labour here in Ratanakiri, and flew out to PP to see a doctor, but not before a few days of concern. My helper suggested that she stop wearing knickers and t-shirts because they cause the baby to have less room in the womb. 
• One of many  horrid and un-funny rats scratched a hole in my ceiling so loudly at about 2am that Esther woke up on no less than three nights because of it, and I had to lie with her until she fell asleep.
• Again my helper, who I love so much, gently suggested that my family are not so well (Wim's arthritis, Esther and Toby's giardia, my lack of energy) because we eat brown rice.  She explained that in Pol Pot times (Khmer Rouge) people had to eat brown rice and many of them died!  (Great ... how do I think like these people in order to help them?) 
• I discovered that our "guard dog" is scared of the neighbours chickens who run at him and steal his food, leaving him, quite literally, cowering in a corner of the shed.  Great.  

But you never know, next week might be better!