I had a friend growing up, let’s call him Bill. His Dad, a father of five children, had a secret room in the basement of the family home. He called it, I think, the blue room.

It was a small closeted area next to the furnace. Inside the door, there was barely room for the one piece of furniture, a lounge chair, like the ones we used to have in our backyards in the 70’s. On one wall was the door, and another was the backside of the furnace. Two walls contained framed shelving units. Behind the frames sat fish tanks, floor to ceiling. When the frames were closed the tanks were hidden and the fish looked to be swimming through the walls. The whole room was painted a pale blue. The only light was a red light like you would find in a photography dark room. The room was for the Dad’s use and no one else’s. It was, to say the least, memorable.

Today started with rain and a little sleet. I sat down at the sewing machine thinking it would be a perfect day to get started on the quilt. By the afternoon it was blue skies and sunny. With plenty of solar power for my iron, I got quite a bit done.

E spent some time down at the boat.. Topped up the oil, ran the kicker .. that sort of thing..

Last night I asked innocently enough how I could turn the fridge off to defrost it. The fridge, you remember is electric. Powered by our solar panels. It is hard wired into a 24 volt battery bank and needs to be completely disconnected from the batteries if we were to leave for any length of time or wanting to defrost. We have never had the need yet but its been sixteen months and the freezer could use a scrub.

This afternoon while I sewed E was puttering. He was going back and forth from under the house to our utility cupboard in the bathroom. This cupboard houses the brains of the house (inverter, batteries, on demand water tank etc.) and E spends a lot of time adjusting “things” in that cupboard. Today, he wired in a switch to the fridge which can be easily flicked to turn the fridge on or off. I won’t have to physically disconnect the wire from the batteries.. Just a flick of a switch and the fridge is turned off… easy peasy.. I have no idea how he knows how to do these things, but I’m glad he does.

If E starts to spend anymore time in that utility cupboard I’m going to have to get him some fish and a lounge chair and a can

of blue paint.