"Let There Be Light"

The fan in our bedroom has five power settings. Turning the little white knob to Levels 1-3 do nothing discernible, save getting the thing to ever so slighty rotate in a wobbly fashion. Level 4 however, begins to inspire hope as the big wooden blades begin spinning at a speed just about good enough to get a bit of a breeze going.

But Level 5...whoa...you have to be ready for level 5. That's a whole different ball game. (One gamely wonders if there isn't in fact a 'missing' level 4.5 that the factory was too cheap to produce?)

For if you notch it up to Level 5 you feel like you're in the midst of a small hurricane. No wonder we have either Egg or Dumps creeping in to kip with us each night in our sweaty sandy cardboard bed. They must wake up thinking they're in the opening scene of Wizard of Oz and hightail it to the safety of the 'Mama-Dada bed', scared out of their wits.

For that's how I feel when I wake nightly to the frantic whirring and discover several bodies in our overcrowded bed. I have to turn it down a notch to Level 4 in order to get back to sleep and subsequently just have to deal with the humidity which creeps quickly back in. Frankly, it's a matter of choosing between a mellow but essentially ineffective Level 4 - or really going for it on Level 5 and hoping you're exhausted enough to sleep through the racket.

Last night there were several long power cuts. The husband was out on the beach somewhere procuring 'dinner' to bring home to us, but given the 2+ hours excursion (and remember we live across the road from the beach) I have my suspicions that he wasn't simply on a food run...but whatever :)

At any rate, the boys had been watching Indian cartoons (blue-skinned deities cavorting around in forests - provoking all sorts of questions later from my Sunday School attending 5 year old who had frankly been under the impression that there was only one God, and that He was neither blue, nor took the form of a monkey or an elephant). Then the power suddenly went out, the tv clicked off, and we were submerged into the blackest of blackness.

I felt my way to the kitchen and lit some candles I keep on the ledge for such emergencies, then gathered the boys into my room to listen to songs on itunes on my laptop. I had the brainwave of turning the trippy 'visualiser' option on, and kept them mesmorised for a good half hour with that. I even had an appreciative audience for some of my music and we happily passed away the next long while until Dada rocked up with soggy bags of fragrant slop which I suppose constituted 'din-dins'.

After a brief respite of light - and most importantly...working FANS! - the power again went off and dripping with perspiration I couldn't sleep so brought my laptop into bed and proceeded to watch one of the pirated films I bought on the beach for a quid, while the husband snored oblivious on the outer perimeter of the bed.

For Dumpie had decided it was also too hot to sleep, and armed with his little cow torch he waddled into our room, snuggled in between the husband and I, and was content to watch the movie snuggled up to me despite being deprived of sound (I had earphones on) until he finally passed on in a puddle of soft flesh and dimples beside me.

I was aware of the husband up several times throughout the night, tapping away on his computer, and obviously too hot to sleep without the aid of a fan. I recall awaking from a dream where I was at Glastonbury, cavorting around backstage with Lily Allan of all people and being force fed magic mushrooms.

I was none to pleased to discover that instead of downing vodka shots with rock n' roll royalty somewhere in the fields of merry old England, I was instead jammed up against the wall in a too small bed not Dumpie but now Egg sidled up against me and doing some serious damage to my right thigh with all his noctural kicking.

This night of hell was rounded off nicely when this morning the husband awoke to discover that he'd left our front gate open and the dogs had stolen one of his precious 'bicycle-riding shoes'. He stormed and stomped about in a bit of a 'Rumplestiltkskin-esque' rage with the remaining shoe held aloft, shoving it in the dogs faces, with no luck for the better part of an hour.

Finally, our lovely landlady (who I suspect knows better English than we give her credit for, and just may have heard my husband muttering about the potential torture he'd like to inflict on whichever bloody dog took his precious shoe) came over with a triumphant grin, holding up the missing shoe which she had found undamaged in the brush nearby.

So now peace has been restored to our household. All is now well and as it should be in our little neck of the woods. The husband has happily ridden off for his daily bike ride, feeling like the luckiest man on earth. I have had my morning coffee (grounds and all) and the monsters are both in school for the next few hours.

All that remains is to fix the hatchet job I made of my fringe in a moment of heat-inspired madness yesterday when I took to my hair with Dumpie's Crayola 'Kiddie Scissors'.