reynardo | Blargh...

OK, movers got most of the stuff to the new house. There's always those loose bits and pieces though.

So we ran a spa last night, I threw in a cutesy bath bomb (that turned out to have sparkly stars in it), hopped in, hit the button, had about a minute of bubbles, then nothing. Hit button again. Then yell from downstairs "Whatever you've done up there, you've killed the Internets."

And beneath lies the story of how we languished in the dark.

Checking around, all the power points are dead. Bugger. Including the fridge and chest freezer. Double-bugger.

State of guilt, wondering if sparkly bathbomb stars have shorted pump. But no whining sounds, no smell of burtn electricals...

Check fusebox. The circuit breaker on the "save me from electrocution by dodgy electrical items" side (hereafter referred to as FCB) has tripped. Try resetting it.

It won't click into place. Flips straight back off.

Run around and unplug everything we can get to. Please note at this point that the spa doesn't seem to have a switch anywhere. It's in the upstairs bathroom, completely tiled.

Try FCB again. Flips straight back off again.

Try turning off all breakers, try FCB - turns straight back off again.

Call electrician listed on breaker box. Answering service - still haven't heard back.

Call up emergency electricians.

Emergency electricican (EE): "Have you unplugged everything?"

lederhosen (LH): "Yes, except the spa in the upstairs bathroom which we can't see an on/off switch for."

EE: "There must be one. Look on the outside."

LH: "There's only tiles on the outside."

EE: "But there must be a cut off switch for it. Try on the outside of the house."

LH: "It's on the first floor - there's nothing there."

EE: "Then what about a cupboard or panel beside it."

LH: "No, there's nothing in the bathroom cupboard, and no panel. It's all tiled in. We think the previous owner had it especially installed."

EE: "Well then, you probably don't bloody want me to come out 'cause I'd be too bloody expensive."

So we rang another place, and the guy was very nice and straightforward, but quoted us $550 plus parts. As most of the food would be ok, just defrosted, we decided to wait until morning. (I rang EE back and he quoted $660. I also realised later that if we've switched off the two circuit breakers for that part of the board, then there's nothing behind them that should be affecting the main switch, meaning that that one is faulty for sure.)

The wonderful and amazingly talented

17catherines had already asked us for dinner, so we headed over and were fed to the point of Almost Unable to Move. It's going to be dangerous living in the same suburb as her. Also she told me some lovely feedback about a job I went for, that has helped a lot in the whole "Jobhunting Sucks" stakes.

Then I drove

da_norvegicus back to the old house - (side note, he's not coming to live with us unless he has a job, and the house has to be vacant by Tuesday, so he's looking out for share space if anyone has a space free and no cats) - and

lederhosen rang to say he'd worked out that as the air conditioner was on a separate circuit, we could instead run an extension lead off that, giving us fridge, freezer and internet. So

lederhosen is well worthy of the Fluffy Puffy Dance of Victory.

And then this morning, thanks to the rain, the nice guy I spoke to last night was able to come for daytime rates, and now we has Internuts and Power and it was the flipping switch misbehaving.

So there.