Running Water

I'm tempted to go all tongue-in-cheek and say today I am thankful that the US Presidential elections are over... but I shall refrain. This is a no-politics zone here at A Perfect Lazy Day.

Today was a cold, windy, rainy day. (Kinda like most days in Scotland.) It was the kind of rain that soaks into your skin, and the kind of cold that touches your bones. No amount of hand-rubbing over the radiator can get that kind of rain and cold out of your body. The weather had me feeling lethargic and miserable.

I had a lot of running around to do today after school pick-up. Saying that, school pick-ups on their own are a lot of running around for me. I go from one school to get the kids I childmind and then go to another school to get Fifi. Yesterday and today those rounds were made even more complicated as I had after-school club pick-ups too. Today, I stood in the rain and wind for ten minutes waiting at the first school. I then drove up to Fifi's school to get her. I needed to pick up Fifi and Lolly's pottery pieces, so I had to run in and out of Maria's pottery studio in the rain. Then I had to drive back up to the school to pick up my other minded child (more standing outside waiting in the rain). It was around then that I received the most welcome phone call a childminder can receive: their mum saying she'd gotten home early and if I didn't mind, I could just bring them home straight from after-school club.

It was from that very second until the second I got home that all I could dream about was a nice, hot bath to warm up in. (Thank you, Veronique!)

I took my kids home, made a little bargain with Scott, and spent my unexpected time off soaking in a deliciously hot bath with my Panto script. I barely got halfway through the script (to the part that I actually still need to work a bit on) when I let it fall from my fingers onto the floor and submitted to the heavy eyes that were coaxing me to fall asleep. I lay in that bath for 45 minutes, completely relaxed and warm. It was glorious.

I am thankful for running water. The above scene is another one of these luxuries that we so easily take for granted. When I was in Venezuela on a mission trip at age twelve, we got five minute lukewarm showers every three days. When I was in Pakistan on a mission trip at age thirteen, we got five minute cold showers every three days. Even these showering facilities were considered high brow in the places we were (poor, rural areas of each country, not the affluent touristy areas). In Pakistan, one of the dorms we stayed in had a toilet; talk about fancy! The rest of the dorms had 'squatty potties' that needed to be 'flushed' with a bucket of water poured down the hole, while flies buzzed all around your backside.

When I am thirsty, I grab a glass from the cupboard, turn on the tap, and fill my cup. I drink it. I don't get sick. What a luxury! Clean, cool drinking water straight from the tap, from the comfort of my own kitchen! No walking ten miles in the heat with an empty bucket before the sun is up to fill my bucket with contaminated water and walking the ten miles back home. No filters needed. No rationing. No effort whatsoever. Do we even realise what we have literally at our fingertips?!

I am thankful for running water. Thank you, God, once again, for the undeserved, unmerited, unearned privilege of living in a country that has such riches.

Water, liquid diamonds.