Doing my part to conserve water.

Gorgeous Man left on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend presenting at a seminar in Durban. Saturday morning I woke up and as I was washing my hands noticed that the water coming out of the tap was slowing to a trickle and then stopped altogether.

We are without water again.

I raced around the house and drained all of the hot taps. If you ever lose water, there will always be a bit left in the pipes of your hot taps, as it is stored in your water heater, or geyzer as they say here. That gave me additional drinking water.

The campus maintenance team came around with a water trailer later in the day and gave me some water so that we can flush toilets. This is my new high tech system.

The little hand in the picture is very accurate. Even though it’s freezing, the water is a great temptation for a certain little miss who can now open every door in the house.

This morning my alternate water supply was delivered:

The picture is not blurry,  it’s raining. This is not for drinking, but for flushing toilets and washing dishes. I’m waiting for the rain to stop so I can go out and collect some.

I’m very good at conserving water. The kettle is boiled and a small amount of water is used to sterilize Gorgeous Girl’s bottle. Then the water is cooled a little and poured over a wash cloth (which is held over the sink to also rinse dishes) so that I can wash Gorgeous Girl’s face.

I’m not happy about having to use disposibles all day, but cloth nappies are just not practical at this point in time.

I’m having a quiet panic at the moment as they are predicting that we will be a week without water. Normally this wouldn’t be too much of a problem since I work from home. But I need to be in the office all next week, and we have a big launch party for the company on Tuesday night. One of our American colleagues is flying over and is being put up in a hotel not far from the office. I may have to go and borrow her shower every day….sigh

I also hate telling Gorgeous Girl that she can’t have a bath because there is no water…

So, what’s a girl to do when she is on her own and can’t leave the house because she is unwashed? Well there was a bit of spinning, and some sewing on the fish quilt. Here’s a pic of my current leaders and enders project.

Nine-patches from 1″ cut squares. I am not matching them at all. They get sewn together in the order that I pull them from the scrap bucket. I only put one back if it is the same. I think I’m going to space them with 2″ squares, but haven’t decided if I’m going to use a single plain spacer or a scrappy patterned look.

I’ve also been knitting. This is the beginning of juno regina in my orange handspun.

It’s turning out reasonably well, not sure about the light section though.

I hope that all of you have water. I swear, I will never take indoor plumbing for granted again. Just think, 20 more days and I’ll be back in Australia!