Be careful what you wish for.

With all the driving around Argentina and showing guests around Valparaíso, the kids were exhausted and asked that we don’t go anywhere this weekend.  We promised them that no matter what we’d spend the weekend in the apartment.

Saturday was a day for Spring cleaning the apartment and taking stock of our accumulated assets for the past six months.  By Sunday afternoon when I said I was going out to buy some bread Indiana asked if she could come too.  The novelty of being home all weekend had worn off and she was ready for an outing.  Never had a jaunt up the cerro appeared so inviting.  A quick survey at the end of the weekend reveled that four out of four Harpers like going out at the weekend.

Perhaps we are clinging onto our British heritage too firmly but we haven’t seen a single eggcup here.  How does one eat one’s dippy eggs without an eggcup?  The usual method is to make a collar from a cereal box.  Not the most durable method but it works none the less.

During a visit to el baño I noticed the hot water heater seemed to be on a bit of a tilt.  As mentioned previously, the 90 degree right angle was not imported to Valparaíso until the late 1960s, some sixty years after this house was built.  It is impossible to retrofit the 90 degree right angle but it is possible to pass an apple to someone at the other end of the table by just letting go of the apple and letting it roll.  The gas heater is held on by two nails and is a metre off the ground.  One of the nails had bent and the heater was only held in place by one nail and the head of the second one.  If the heater falls it would rip out the gas line and the water pipe, which would cause a fair amount of damage.

We’ve since secured the heater in place.