Day 37: Life in a northern town

Matt from Mr Handyman came today to sort out some odd-jobs after being delayed two days in a row by the 'Shock and Awe' of Wednesday's weather (as Todd is calling it on the weather forecast this evening). Matt himself was of the opinion that 'the whole winter's snow had fallen on one day' - everyone seems to be interested in our reaction to it as foreigners, but when it comes down to it I don't think it was any more of a shock for us than for most of the locals.

Matt's task mostly involved the repairing of the 'drainers' in the sinks and one 'tub' (pictured). This one was of particular interest and satisfaction to him as he'd never taken one apart before and they're cool - and he'd never seen one working properly. We have now, as it kept the young Exiles' bath water in admirably this evening.

Exile #3 was back at school today. We knew the school was open by referring to the local school-closures lists that are on the internet and played in a constant loop on the bottom of the screen on the local channels. On Wednesday it seemed to take about ten minutes to list all the closures (basically every school in the area), this evening there is just one item listed on continuous display:
OUR LADY OF MT CARMEL CHURCH - No Bingo
Very important to some I don't doubt.

In the less-normal category: Exile #4 has had her second diaper-free day today and is very pleased with herself and Exile #3 announced her engagement to one of her classmates - and was extremely affronted when she thought (wrongly) that I was suggesting that her new-future-husband might actually marry one of the other girls in the class. Sounds serious, we'd better start saving.

"The evening had turned to rain..." (no there's not much chance of that at the moment - just pop pun #2 for the title watchers)