Well that was a series of unfortunate coincidences

Yesterday was Tuesday which meant I was scheduled to have another niggly dinner with my father. Yesterday however was supposed to be different because the day before I'd agreed to have dinner with my mother instead which would have made for a change of pace and quite a pleasant evening.

Just as I was on my way out of the door to meet her I discovered I couldn't find my Ipod. Cue me running around the house desperately trying to find the damn thing, leaving late and meeting my mother in a harassed and irritable mood.

My mother was also feeling irritable for reasons of her own. The first of which was the fact that recently, why we do not know, my sister was kicked out of her sheltered housing. This meant the vulnerable girl with along history of mental health admissions and an equally long history of less then successful work based therapy has been homeless for the last couple of weeks and couch surfing. All this puts her and her mother under a great deal of stress.

The other reason for my mothers discomfort is that yesterday there was a major power cut across South West London when two power stations simultaneously stopped providing electricity to the national grid. As my mother works in a hospital in South West London this meant her day suddenly became much more complicated because aside from the expected problems with lighting and computer systems the power cut also managed to take out running water and flushing toilets.

What with me being in a fiery mood and my mother being in a fiery mood what should have been a peaceful meal rapidly turned into a hostile one of the sort I'm used to having with my father. As with what are by now standing orders this was a routine with lots of hostility and barbed comments but with neither party coming close to addressing the bare bones of the issue.

When I got home I had another quick look for the old Ipod and when I couldn't find it I asked my dad if he'd seen it. He got into a bit of a huff and went to look for it himself. After he returned empty handed I went and hand another look. I then founding the it sitting innocently in a spot that I could swear I had searched only moments before. The I got drunk and we had a proper "Oh my god, the sky's on fire!" thunderstorm which is not a good combination.

Now I'm sitting here in an Internet cafe, because my home connection is down again, wandering why those power in this country seem to think that cutting electricity to a large section of the country in order to gain some small scraps of a story filtered through a series of inaccurate ciphers is a better deal for them then simply giving someone else a new job and getting a more detailed and accurate account?