I've got the power

It has been a funny old day today! Mostly funny peculiar and a little bit ha ha.

Jeremy went off this morning to Jakarta for a meeting leaving me and Mr Pickle to amuse ourselves. Mr Pickle started his day by having a lovely swim in our paddling pool sized bath tub with his bath toys and a cup of milk on the side of the bath. It looked a bit like the baby version of the Club Tropicana video (that would be a song by Wham for those of you who are too young to know what I am referring to, have a look on Wiki).

I was making toast in the kitchen when the power went out. My initial thoughts were that I had fused the house by using the toaster. No such luck, we were having a power outage. We waited 10 minutes, at which point I decided that we needed the air conditioning back on. I managed to start our generator and flick the power across to it first time. Go me! I had to do this myself because the house boy works elsewhere in the day. 

Meanwhile, I am getting myself and Mr Pickle ready to go out with one of the members of the Balikpapan International Women's Association (BIWA) for a drive around the locale when there is a knock on the side door. Who should it be, not the lady from BIWA but the house boy, who should be elsewhere, working. 

He proceeds to tell me (with gestures, etc.) that the gardener is here to do the front and the back garden. That is funny ha ha because the garden is comprised of two strips of manky looking grass, which is so coarse you could mistake it for astroturf, and a few potted palms. It was such a hard job that the house boy stayed to 'assist' the gardener in his efforts.

I was a bit confused as I thought Jeremy had told me the house boy was going to do the garden. I was then railroaded into paying the gardener for his 'services'. Jeremy will be on the case to find out what is going on there. 

Having rung Jeremy about the issue above, we realised he had gone off with my means of purchasing anything worthwhile, e.g. shoes in the mall. I am sure this was an oversight.


Due to all the shenanigans with power, gardeners, house boys and phonecalls to Jakarta, my hair dried all on it's own without the assistance of a hair dryer (which definately would have fused the house) and I looked a right mess for meeting someone for the first time.

The lady from BIWA was very nice (and didn't comment on my appearance) and we visited the afore mentioned mall, the Balikpapan Super Block. I would like to share photos of this on the blog but I haven't worked out how to do it yet so I will save a detailed account of shopping there for a day when I actually manage to shop.

I tracked down some bread flour with the help of a shop assistant who was gone so long we think he was actually milling the flour himself. Jeremy thinks he ran to another shop! I will be sharing my bread making escapades in future blogs. That's like a cliff hanger right there!


After lunch we went on a play date and Mr Pickle managed to fall off a tricycle three times, eat two chocolate biscuits, drink two glasses of water, develop a sweat rash on his forehead and have a thouroughly enjoyable and tiring time. When we came home he ate all his tea, watched a bit of Dora the Explorer, had a story and fell asleep with a huge electrical storm raging around us.


As I shut his bedroom door, everything went black. Hooray, another powercut! Luckily the house boy is here and before I could find the torch, the lights came back on and I didn't have to lift a finger. I did have to reconnect the internet to post this blog.