Is there anyone there?

We are suffering with a lack of contact with the outside world because we have discovered that no-one with a Hotmail address appears to get the e-mails we send. Orange, our e-mail provider, cannot do anything about it, so we shall have to find a workaround, unless Hotmail relents of its policy. The same problem seems to happen with some other Internet service providers, as well.
Meanwhile, we are still awaiting our personal effects, which were originally predicted to arrive last Wednesday and we are now told should arrive sometime next week. It is not clear whether we shall have to pay import duties or not, as personal effects are exempt from import duties and VAT, but the shipping agent has mentioned the subject.
No more photos this time as the weather has been too wet and dull until today. But at least we have had two days without power cuts.
As part of the celebrations to mark the end of Ramadan, we have had groups of children calling during the last two days hoping to be given sweets - very much like "trick or treat" in the UK.

Thirty hour power cut

We arrived safely in Kosova, on Wednesday 3rd, being met at the airport by a friend despite his own very busy programme. Since then we have been slightly hampered by the power being off for 30 hours - unusual even by Kosova standards. We seem to have spent a lot of our time sleeping.
We finished counting our possessions in time for the removal men to collect them, and they took just four hours to parcel everything up and take it away. It is due to arrive on the 10th. We also managed to complete the decorating, in the nick of time (some paint went on the day before we left) and to get the garden in reasonable order. This was largely thanks to Gabriel, one of our gap year students, who spent six hours working on the front garden assisted for a while by Haydn, another friend. There is now room to park two cars and the flower bed is tidier than for years.
Finally, the day before we left Andy and Rachel came round and helped us clean and clear up - as well as helping us to keep sane. And we were offered a bed for the night by friends so that we could put our mattress in our second skip the day before, rather than at 6 am the day we left!
In the meantime we had taken time out for the weekend to visit our son, Tim, and his wife, in Chesterfield. It was Tim's 32nd birthday on the Sunday. Saturday was enjoyable. After a long debate we decided to spend the day at the Yorkshire Mining Museum - and then went instead to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Exhausting but very interesting, especially the Anthony Gormley exhibits. But on Sunday evening things went a bit awry when Tim and his wife went down with food poisoning. Fortunately we missed it, just as well as we had to return to Harpenden on the Monday morning for our final injections.
Back in Kosov a, we now have broadband access, thanks to the very efficient internet company - despite our twice having to put them off because we had no electricity. The woman in the office apologised that they would not be able to do the installation until the next day "this is Kosova". British companies please note.