Ack. I have just remembered we were supposed to skype overseas friends last night. I totally forgot. (Sorry!)

There have been a few other things to think about at home, as we have had no electricity since Thursday night. There was an incredibly bad storm. Trees came down all over the place, and on Friday morning when we went to look at the damage it was clear we would not be having any power any time soon. A tree from an opposite garden crashed down across the road, blocking the road and taking down the power cable as effortlessly as if it had been a string of Christmas lights.

It is amazing how much work it is to keep a household fed and partially clean without power. No washing machine, no dishwasher, no iron, no kettle, no toaster, no hot shower or bath, no vacuum cleaner, no oven, no fridge, no microwave. Last night, our surviving camping gas cylinder breathed its last, so this morning, not even a warm wash or a cup of coffee.

I am quite surprised how well Peter and I have been coping with all this, and for the most part, the kids have been picking up on our mood and coping well too.

Thanks to Peter, we do at least have power for one or two lamps, TV, computer, cell phone chargers, hair drier, and, on and off, automatic gate and burglar alarm. Peter proactively and enterprisingly, on Friday, went off to buy some batteries and some long extension cords (thinking of rigging up a cable from the neighbours behind us in the other street). Instead he came back with a 10l jerry can and a generator. He is secretly enjoying the generator aspect of the power shortage - and has a little book labelled Generator Log where he notes down all the usage so far (this to determine when servicing is required).

Last night I had to persuade/co-erce the kids into cold baths and hair washes as they had gone off the acceptable end of the grubbiness scale (after spending about four hours on an enormous smoky bonfire on Saturday afternoon with some of the smaller branches lying around the garden).

So this afternoon I need to get the gas cylinders filled up as a matter of urgency. The electricity department has been working around the clock since Thursday night so all we can do is wait.

Things could be much much worse. We had two large trees come down in our garden (and a whole bunch of other branches from other trees), but one could have destroyed the garage if it had fallen in another direction. Another set of neighbours (whose jacaranda smashed into another part of our garden, narrowly missing the Wendy house, which must have a charmed life) had their whole roof smashed up by yet another falling tree.

The kids are hoping it takes quite a while to clean up the fallen trees in our garden, as they are having so much fun climbing all over them.

We had an impromptu lunch with friends yesterday afternoon including some of our friends who moved to Joburg a while back. We had been planning a visit to the beach but it was too windy so we met at our place instead. The eight kids had a ball together in the jungly garden. It was one of those bright windy days where the brightness is somehow amplified by the wind as the branches and leaves dance around in the sky.

The east coast is also experiencing very unusual weather conditions at the moment, with dangerously high tides and flooding.