Power to the people...

So back to the lawn...

The electricity chaps turned up bright and early on Thursday morning, their vans, diggers and cherry-pickers parked opposite my house.  As I got into my car, a very short man in a hard hat appeared from behind the pole which sits in the middle of my lawn.  It was almost like he'd been lying in wait ready to spring as soon as he saw life.

'Can ve start?' he asked in a very pronounced Eastern European voice.  'Of course', I said, 'the house is empty, so please feel free.  I expect you'll be gone by the time I get back at lunchtime...'

If only I'd known...

Coming home at 1.15 after my morning at Binland, even more vans were there, and I had to park some way from my house.  Muttering something along the lines of, 'It's alright, I only bloody live here', I walked into the drive.  Once again, Herr Grimm (as I had renamed him)  leapt out from behind the nearest van, and started wittering on about how he'd tried to keep the holes in the lawn as neat as possible. Peering into the larger of the two, I wondered how the husband was going to take the attack on his lawn. Each hole was around two metres square and so deep that I'm sure I spotted Jason Donovan and a couple of koalas.  It resembled the Somme.

'By ze vay, ve also managed to cut your telephone vire ven ve vere pullink ze ivy off ze pole'.  Oh great.  So no electricity AND no phone, which also meant no bloody internet (my life was over)...

I had also been told that the electricity would be off intermittently, which implies that at some point it might have been on.  Having poured myself a bowl of ice cream it would appear that this was not the case and I mourned the loss of my sausages (not just any old sausages I'll have you know - these were homemade, and unless the weather perks up to BBQ temperatures this weekend, they are heading for the bin along with the ice cream).

Eight hours later, having sat inside sulking all afternoon, as Herr Grimm had requested that I 'stay in ze 'ouse so zat I can test ze telephone', the lights came back on, along with the radio, two televisions, an electric fan, the tumble drier and the oven (which very kindly likes to beep to let me know that there's been a power cut....like I needed bloody telling).

There was a knock at the door - it was him with the screwdriver again.  'Is your phone vorking?'  

'No, sorry'.  Why the hell I felt the need to apologise is anybody's guess.

So here's where we were.  Me with the house phone, son number two with his mobile, Carlos (the hunky phone engineer with marvellous teeth and striking beard) up the new pole in the cherry picker attaching various telephone wires and Herr Grimm repeating, 'Is it vorking now?'  'Now?'  'Now?'  'Now?'

Son number two came up with the bright idea of calling our house number to see what was going on.  What happened was that he got to speak to the next door neighbour who now was also outside looking confused.

But eventually Carlos saved the day and connected the right wire to the right house and service was resumed (to be honest, I would have forgiven him anything.....that smile from aloft was winning me round and I think he is probably the electricity company's secret weapon).

Now back to the lawn.  The husband came home and looked at our previously flat lawn which now resembled the outline of a humpbacked whale.

I'm not sure that Herr Grimm fully understood what the husband was saying, but I think he got the general idea...