Showering in the dark

Sometimes life seems a series of small events. Today brought two tiny achievements, of significance to nobody but me.

First, I received some mail-order books from the UK. This is not unusual, but too often the books arrive not at the post office, but at a ridiculous little courier company that operates from an unsignposted depot on an industrial estate near Helsinki-Vantaa airport. They will not guarantee a time for home deliveries, and getting to their collection point is pretty much impossible. I have complained and complained. My heart sinks whenever I receive their delivery notice through my mailbox. This time, after a few days of mental preparation, I called to make arrangements, and was told that the package was waiting at my local post office. Hooray! Just a couple of minutes in the queue and now I'm the happy owner of Cassell's 'Chronology of World History' and a bunch of other goodies.

Second, I changed a light bulb! Yes, I know; how many linguists does it take, and so on. But this was the strip light in my bathroom that had gone phut at the weekend. Of course, I had no replacement, and work and rehearsals have meant no time to get to the shop. Today, I finally found time to buy and fit a new bulb, only to discover that the problem was in fact the starter. And the shops were closing. Fortunately, I have a friend in Espoo who is bigger than me on such household issues, and he had a spare. And there was light!

So now I do not have to face an icy trudge across an unlit lorry park to pick up a package, and I can bring closure to my five days of showering in the dark. Life is good!