utilities are useful

Water, electricity, telephone, adsl… we tend to take them for granted, don’t we?

That’s one of the things about living in rural Spain: you never know whether the standard utilities will actually be available. You may go to bed with everything working fine and wake up – like I did today – with certain basic services unavailable.
 
 

A few weeks ago the electricity was off for the whole of Monday morning so the neighbours’ trees could be pruned by the electricity company. A big thunder storm can easily take out the internet connection for the whole village, and today – Christmas Eve, when everyone’s busy preparing one of the most important family meals of the year – we spent the whole morning without water.

Of course it’s annoying and inconvenient, but the occasions when they aren’t available makes me remember how useful utilities are.