Rural services

We haven't had many problems with the lack of services up our road. By that I mean no post delivery, no garbage collection, no town water, no mains gas, no phone line. In fact in many ways I prefer it this way. It means we get to drink tank water and collect our mail from the nice people who run the local post office. Even taking our rubbish to the tip has its benefits. I instantly became much more conscious of what I could compost and buy without packaging to reduce our rubbish. Also, there's no garbage truck noise to disturb the peace at 6am.

However, yesterday morning's 'planned' power outage presented some small challenges. In the past, we have received a letter from Aurora Energy to say that the power would be out from, say, 9am until midday on a certain day, for repairs or upgrades. But this time, nothing. At 8.55am the power went out. Hmm. I called the service hotline five minutes later, to be told there was a 'planned' outage until 3pm due to tree trimming on our road. So with laptop battery power and wireless broadband I was able to keep working from home for a couple of hours, until my computer battery died and the mobile phone battery was about to go. The water pump wasn't working, so no tap water or flushing toilets. When we've had warning of outages before, we have filled some plastic containers with water and put the kettle on the gas stove for tea. So I decided to go and work from the internet cafe in Huonville... um, the truck is in the garage and the remote controlled door would need to be disengaged so I could get out. Sent a text to David who was at a customer site in Sandy Bay to explain why the garage would not open when he got home.

This morning, looking out the window I can see the workers chainsawing and mulching trees on our road and I'm wondering whether there is another 'planned' outage about to happen... at least today I am fully charged and better prepared!