Load Shedding

Hi guys,

I thought I'd just have to let you all know what's happening here in terms of our electricity over Christmas. 

In Nepal and especially the Kathmandu valley Nepal Electricity Authority cannot produce enough electricity to meet the demmand, therefore they have introduced load shedding to reduce demmand and ration electricity until the next rains.

So what's it all about? Well basically they turn the plug off for so many hours a day and everyone just has to put up with it. Last week we were on 45 hours a week without power and then yesterday this went up to 63 hours a week and forecast for upto 14 hours a day. Totally Crazy.

What does 10 hours a day without electricity look like? The following is an exert from the lastest load shedding schedule and shows the times we're without power...

   Monday     Tuesday    Wednesday     Thursday        Friday         Saturday            Sunday

06:30-12:30 Morning/Day   17:00-21:00 Evening

08:30-14:30 Morning/Day   17:30-21:30 Evening

10:30-16:30 Morning/Day   21:30-01:30 Night

20:00-23:00 Night

00:30-06:30 Morning   16.00-20.00 Evening

02:30-08:30 Morning   16:15-20:15 Evening

04:30-10:30 Morning   16:30-20:30 Evening

We basically are eating our evening meal with the kids by low level 11W bulbs using our inverter and 2 big car batteries... the majority of folk will be using candles. Same is true for bath and bedtime - so bedtime stories are in the light of a single light bulb or hurricane light. Then as if that wasn't enough we're also unplugged for breakfast. So no toast, no cold milk (unless we leave it outside!), no fairy lights on our make do Christmas Tree. Thankfully we brought our gas top kettle so we can have a cup of tea but it is not much fun.

Then to top it all off I learned yesterday that the financial model the NEA are using to price hydro electricity projects in the country underplay the amount of money required to produce a KW of electricty and then undersut the selling price so it is actually more lucrative to sell direct to India... therefore we are unlikely to see a reduction in the number of hours without power for years.... and then I think of the Cochraines who were sent by PCI to the Algarve... what's wrong with this picture?

Christmas Mayhem

Hi guys,

Sorry I'm getting a bit sluggish in updating this - truth is it's hectic and there's loads going on here in the run up to Christmas... as I'm sure it is with you guys...

Anyway, big news this time is:

1) I've started work - whooo hooo yiiipppeee hoot hoot!

Bev (the current strategy and policy director) is leaving at the end of the month (boo hiss) so I'm getting some time with her to hand over and get to grips with the stuff I've got to do. Bev's a big Obama fan so we arranged for him to come to her final Leadership Team meeting!!!

Well - it's brilliant - the work couldn't be better and there is loads of really interesting stuff going on. I can't wait to get stuck in.

2) The kids were at a great birthday party and had a mouth wateringly great game trying to eat doughnuts on strings without using their hands... what a laugh. Toby, being a perfectionist was v frustrated and was almost shouting at me to lower it a bit as his mouth dribbled and he couldn't quite get his teeth into the moist, sugared doughnut! Lulu and Ollie couldn't quite figure out what was wrong as they kept lunging at their prize only to find that it swayed out of the way and they got mouthfuls of air!

3) The kids have all had there Christmas plays!!! Wow - little heros. Ollie and Lulu were in the same play. Lulu was a red elf and sat through the whole play with a great outfit on and big red rosy cheeks... I'm not sure what she was meant to be doing but she spent most of the show looking cute and waving to George and I!

Ollie was a king polar bear - with two little cubs and stole the show with his solo - age 5! Talk about hairs on the back of my neck and big surges of parental pride! Toby was in a second play with P1 and P2 kids. He was Jack Frost and delivered a great 3 verse poem... I think he liked the idea of getting a good part but on the day he was wetting himself. He did brillantly though and the whole thing was great - fantastic outfits - maintly becuase it's pretty easy to find someone to do all the tailoring here!

4) George has been making Christmas cakes, and mince pies, and fudge, and ... actually while she was in Ireland the girls came round and made four Christmas cakes in our kitchen, yep there's Hillary with our laundry boal, mixing the cake mix on our floor. Nigella Express - not! Everything has turned out great and George has been inspired to modify a few recipees and see what we can make here for the fextive season. She's made her own mincemeat for the Christmas pies!!! And I've had one and am still standing!!!

Best news is that strawberries are on the Christmas menu, a lot of stuff isn't (no parsnips, or smokes salmon, no prawns, no melon, no stilton) but fresh in season strawberries are so we're looking for inspiration about what we can do with them!

5) Loadshedding - i.e. power cuts - are up to 45 hours a week! 7 hours a day when we don't have power - another reason why it's getting more difficult to keep the blog up to date. So far it's been ok but 4 week nights out of 5 we're either got to eat or bath the children by candle light or headtorch! Fun some of the time - mostly just a bit of a pain... Ah well - sure it's only electricity.

Anyway have a great Christmas time - I'll hopefully post something before hand... cheers

Traybakes

mmm mmm mmm

Yes George is back from Ireland and she brought loads of goodies with her! I thought I'd list a few of the best bits from her luggage to give you an idea of what we're missing out here...

1) 5 kilos of traybakes!!! give it up for Ulster scran... you guys rock! Gillian thanks so much for the rocky road things and the white chocolate marshmallow things and yer man from the coffee shop provided some ace caramel squares, malteaser sqaures, lemon tops (my absolute favourite!) and 15s... wow.

2) A new laptop - totally tiny, and only 1.5 kilos. OK I'm a techie gadget boy, but this thing is brilliant and I've spent all week getting it set up and ready for the road when I strate heading off to remote parts of Nepal. It has a 9 hour battery!!! Totally fantastic.

3) An electric blanket - now this is sheer luxury - when we have electricity this thing is awesome... dual controlled and it turns itself off! I can't imagine what I did before we had it, no more icy cold beds for us.

4) Gobstoppers and strawbery laces from Curious Candy in Bangor - the kids nearly freaked out and it has taken them 3 days to finish off one of their gobstoppers! They were in sugar heaven. Lulu had gobstopper juice all over her and couldn't fit it in her mouth for the whole of the first day eating it!

5) Hot water bottles - yep do you get the feeling that it's cold out here? We've got three great hotties for the kids so they're snug as bugs now when they're off to bed.  We've had a complete change of wardrobe here as it changed from sort of late september autumn to deep winter in 2 weeks!

6) Percy Pigs -  Good ol' Marks & Spencers - percy and friends rock expect we all end up fighting over the cola ones... they are just too cool for skool.

7) Earl grey tea - darling! Of course there is tea out here but it's not Twinnings darling! 

8) Angel Delight - well the kids have got to keep their E number ration up, they were basically getting withdrawal symptoms and a monkey on the back of 3 cheeky monkeys is not fun for anyone!!! Good ol' Angel Delight - tastes great out here.

There was loads of stuff - George went to Ireland with about 15 kilos and came back with 55! 

Anyway there is loads of other news as you can imagine but I'll get to it over the next couple of weeks. Hope you are all cool.

Cheers...