Straight from my email box here in the heart of Concord, California, we now bring you . . . . Olwyn!
(snip) Was finally allowed into town the other day. My house is basically fine, praise heaven, except for the fridges and freezer which are mouldy. Not bad, as we had given away most of the contents before we left. There will be some roof leaks, as we lost some slates, but will just live with blue tarps until we come to the top of the list of the regular slate roof man. DH cleaned out the small fridge in the laundry room, which we mostly keep for soft drinks, beer and wine and the occasional piece of fruit which does not fit in the bowl on the sideboard, and that one is up and running. Today he cleaned the chest freezer, so that should be good in a couple of days. We have electricity, gas and landline phone, but the big problem is that the city water pipes have so many breaks that the quality is getting polluted between the treatment plant and the homes, and people with compromised immune systems are not even supposed to bathe in it. I was supposed to spend a couple of weeks in bed with the visiting nurse coming in daily, and you read what happened instead!!! Oh well. Basically, we go over to the house every day (stay out from under our current hostess's feet, even though we are very long-time friends) and dh does the work with me sitting directing operations. This has taken a toll on him, too, so he works for a while, then we both rest awhile, and so on. My doctors have not yet been allowed to open their offices, but dh saw his eye man last week and needs more surgery. He sees his cardiologist tomorrow, then he has promised that as soon as the eye man lets him leave town again, he will take me away to a resort hotel for a week to just lie and recover. Right now, the local airport has non-stop flights to Houston, Dallas and Atlanta, so I guess we will be going to Atlanta area.
Olwyn Mary.