Yesterday morning, as I was putting groceries in my bike bags outside the supermarket, I caught myself singing along to In the Bleak Midwinter coming from the muzak speakers. The muzak at that shopping mall is mostly “easy-listening classics” — not so easy for me, because I know most of the music and I keep waiting for the twist, the surprise, in every piece that they’ve carefully edited out to make it suitable for muzak. But never mind about that.

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I don’t know (well, in fact I do know; post about that later) how I got this earworm about 3 months late or 8 months early; it’s a St Nicholas song. But the lyrics are deliciously complex and I’ll dissect them for fun.

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Just now that the Krita sprint is underway there’s a power cut. Extremely local, though: our house (though not either of the neighbours, or the church), the shop opposite, and a handful of shops around the corner. The power went out at 9 and when we called the energy company around 10 they said “someone is on his way already, but it may take some time to clear up.”

In the next few hours, three vans and a small digger appeared with a total of nine men. Two came in to apply a voltmeter to something in our meter cupboard. There was already a hole in the road a bit further on, with two men in it and two others staring into it while the digger driver looked on with some interest. After taking measurements in our house and presumably some of the other affected houses. they started to dig a hole in front of the restaurant on the corner.

My other half took the hackers down to the church cellar, where they did have electricity, a kettle and a coffee machine, though no network because the server is out too, of course. (And anyway, nobody ever has any signal in the cellar, phone or wifi.)

When I went out to take some pictures, the workmen showed me the cause of it all: a burnt-through coupling the size of my forearm. As I’m writing this at about 15:40, someone is wrapping the new coupling in what looks like heavy-duty duct tape.

Epilogue: at 16:45 the power was back, minutes before I came in from getting more firewood. It’s not on the website of the local paper yet.

Most people will think this is the meat of the story, but I still intend to write a hotel review too.

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I’m splitting this into four parts because otherwise it’s too long; parts may still be boring. If you only want to read about FOSDEM, Part 2 and for my hotel review/recommendation, Part 3.

Note: It’s possible that some parts aren’t up yet. In that case, please try again later.

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Not that I’m a developer; the nearest that I come to that is “KWord alpha tester” (which reminds me that I haven’t checked out today’s version yet). But I’ve wanted to stand behind a stall for a long time, and this is a nice opportunity. Also, I’ll go and see something of Brussels on Sunday, for instance the Hallepoort (Porte de Hal if you prefer French to Flemish). I’m determined not to do anything useful, like volunteer for another half-day of Fosdem or even go to church. Perhaps the hotel I’ve just booked a room at (Euro Capital Brussels) is full of Fosdem people, but I won’t let them sway me.

Spent about half an hour mending Tertia’s bike tire in front of the house.

Greeted by 2 acquaintances and 5 complete strangers who passed on foot or on bikes.

Talked to 1 neighbour (a nice old lady) when she came back from shopping.

Dragged bike out of the way of 1 delivery lorry.

Accepted mail from 1 postman who was confident that the woman in the road belonged with the open door behind her.

Asked 1 young man not to throw his cigarette end on the ground practically at my feet. Young man’s friend agreed with me and kicked it in a grating.

Declined 2 offers of help, one of them very sexist.

Showed 1 person the way to somewhere just around the corner, but hard to find. Helped 2 pairs of tourists with their maps (we live in a very confusing spot because all the road signs seem to say different things).

Got a screwdriver to fix my own bike light, but of course Tertia went to school on my bike this morning so I couldn’t.

The swimming pool has a new access system. This means that everybody needed a new pass. First we got a very wordy letter explaining that all sports accommodations are in a new conglomerate now, and the various antiquated computer systems are being updated, yadda yadda, ending with one small paragraph saying that our passes would stop working and we should go and get a new one at the other pool on the other side of town. Then we got another letter to apologise for the unclearness of first letter, saying that we could use our old pass until January 4, and would get a new pass after January 11, right at our usual pool, and in the week between we would be let in on showing our old pass.

January 4 came and went and the old pass still worked. So did January 11. On the 14th, a new beepy machine had suddenly appeared on the gate, but the gate was open so I walked right through. This wasn’t the idea: I had to come back and have my pass changed. Ten minutes of waiting, a new photo even worse than the one I had, and then the beepy machine told me that my pass was valid until 1-13-2010. WTF? Even in the US date format it would be 1-14-2010. The woman behind the counter said “impossible that it says that, we don’t have a 13th month” so firmly that I thought I’d seen it wrong, but when I came out she asked me to beep the pass again and yes, 1-13-2010. I had to do it twice more for two different men both called Jan to see it too.

Tech support was called. Tech support didn’t believe it either, but they said they’d look into it.

The next day —Friday the 15th— the beepy machine told me that my pass was valid until 1-14-2010. Had tech support, er, fixed it, or was it something strange and US date format after all? Today —Monday the 18th— my curiosity was satisfied: 1-17-2010.

Apparently my pass is always valid until yesterday. So why does it let me in?

I wish I could rememer poetry in dreams, because what you gave me this time was amazing. A king (presumably played by me, but rather unimaginatively called George) who was given a wooden box with three cakes and a prophecy, making him travel the world to find three people to share the cakes with, one with the innocence of a child, one with the vigor of a grown man (I think) and one with the wisdom of an old man. In the end it turned out, of course, that these people were all himself at various stages of life. But the entourage! If I could write it up as a story it might even be publishable.

(But would three cakes stay fresh that long? Ah well, must have been a magical box.)

There was much more, ordering chocolate sprinkles that when they arrived were more like Spätzle and carrying lots of groceries into a house I’ve never seen, but presumably mine, helped by random passers-by, but it pales beside the box with the cakes.

This little Christmas-tree angel is older than I am. I think my parents got it the first Christmas after they were married, in 1954.

There’s also a glass house that’s still from my parents’ decorations, but I forgot to take a picture of that. Next year…