let that be a warning

This is a cautionary tale about an American who died after the utility company cut off his electricity – he took 4 days to freeze to death.  How long did the gas ’situation’ go on for in Kiev?  Well, the reason for the cut off was because this old bloke didn’t pay his bill. 

This reminded me of December time when a notice with names and numbers was posted on the front door of our building.  We pondered over this for a few days (read: we looked at the notice and thought – yep, whatever that means - as befits all notices in our building) until I eventually bumped into lovely Dmitri (a story for another day involving our neighbour and his underpants) who explained that this was a list of apartments in our block and their outstanding utility bills.  brrrrrrrrrr could have been chilly in there…….

lena the tailor

mindthegap is doing positivity this week.  MDH and I had dinner with his replacement (yes, you heard correct; replacement – we are leeeeeeeaaavinnnnnggggg) (oh and not really replacement because MDH can’t be replaced – he is irreplaceable but anyway).  So we had dinner with Mr and Mrs Replacement – following a strict briefing beforehand to be absolutely positive about Kiev.  Is there any other way to be? 

I got thinking about the positives.  Kiev is a 3 hour flight to Paris.

No, there is a smidgen of other shiney nuggets that mindthegap should start sharing before desserting.

A recent positive is Lena the tailor.  Introduced to me by a good friend, MDH and I have found Lena a godsend.  In fact she is the goddess of needles.  She can bust a mean stitch.  These recession-driven times brought us to Lena with 30 items of clothing that needed holes fixing (did you know that lavender oil beats the moths? I didn’t.), rips mending, seams taking in (MDH) and seams letting out (me). 

How one can require 7cm more on the waist especially when one has been tortured in the gym by Natalia the trainer (that’s another nugget for later) is beyond me.  Anyhow this is why Lena is really a goddess – on measuring my expanded waistline she said not to bother letting the seams out and told MDH to buy me new trousers (yeah I like that) and when he groaned, told him that the gap’s body was very womanly and all natural.  Yeah hahaha.  The needle goddess rocks. 

Needle goddess’s number is 80506917675.