An Unexpected Candle Lit Dinner

Last night Papicito gazed out of the window at the lawn and commented that the garden could do with watering, but he never got around to it.

Just before Chiquitito's bedtime the skies grew rapidly black and it started to rain. The smell of fresh rain on the dry earth gave off a gorgoeus smell, and as the rain quickened the storm gathered pace with louds rumbles of thunder and huge flashes of lightening.

We went and stood on the under cover terrace to watch the storm when the biggest crack of thunder went off right over head at the same time as an enormous flash of light. Everything went silent, and we turned around to see that the electricity had gone off.

The daylight was quickly fading into night so Papi went to check that it wasn't just us and to get our supply of candles from the garage, whilst there was still enough light to find things. Usually the power doesn't stay off for long, but we wanted to be prepared.

Chiquitito was tired and didn't put up an argument about bedtime, even though the power cut had upset his routine. His room is the smallest of our three bedrooms, and without his fan on it gets unbearably hot, so we put him to bed in our room with the windows open and the tiniest of breezes.

We lit our citronella candles, to ward off mosquitos, and sat on the terrace with a pre-dinner drink, watching the storm rumbling on. The inside of the house was an uncomfortable temperature, whilst outside was perfect.

Still no electric.

Luckily, I had baked a quiche the day before so Papi was able to prepare dinner by candlelight (the two candles in the kitchen were far superior to any of the others we have and I will definitely be buying some more of them!)

We ate outside - with the glow from the candles supplemented by the bright lightening. The lightening flashes were so frequent that I made Papi venture out into the wet to make sure there was nothing on fire in next door's garden!

Two hours after the power went off it came back - to the sound of cheers from us and our neighbours.

But do you know - it was so romantic sat outside drinking vodka and coke by candlelight that we didn't come back in for quite a while.

Welcome to 21st Century Telephony

When we lived in the UK I always had an uptodate mobile (cell) phone, on contract, so therefore heavily subsidised, and I always had (and used) lots of inclusive minutes and texts. Whereas Papicito has never been a mobile lover; indeed before we met he had a reclusive handset that rarely left the house.

It came as a shock when we moved to Malaysia in 2008 to discover that whilst phone calls were incredibly cheap, even on PAYG, handsets were not. I struggled to get my 3 handset unlocked, so grudgingly I downgraded to a basic Nokia handset, something to similar to the one on shown here.Mobile phones were still in the early days of internet access so I guess I didn't miss what I'd not been used to.

When we moved to El Salvador in 2010 we were provided with phones from my husband's company, contract phones that allowed free calls to each other, but once again not technicalogically advanced and quite heavy to carry. Hence we named our "new" phone el bricko! A year or so on and we got offered the chance to upgrade, to a more advanced phone, but at extra cost, so we took the sensible decision to keep with whatever phone we got offered for free!

So, despite having all mod cons with our iPad and Nexus, for six years we have been living in a telephony timewarp.

Then, a friend who was in a pre packing frenzy before their move oerseas advertised her 32gb iPhone 4s at a very reasonable price. I looked, I ummed, I arghed, I procrastinated, then Papicito said the nicest words a husband can: "Have it if you want!"

Two months later I can already see how it has changed my life. I no longer carry my cumbersome iPad around with me, or even the sleeker Nexus7. Instead my handbag is barely any heavier with the addition of my iPhone. Now I don't have to look dumb when the dental rceptionist asks if she can WhatsApp my appointment reminder, I can squirm when the mechanic is delighted that he can FaceTime me with the arrival time of my car and I can Skype family back home using a normal phone, instead of having to talk into the back of the iPad.

We were discussing an upcoming shopping trip to the US and Papicito asked me if I wanted a new iPod for Xmas, to replace my elderly 80GB one. Er....no! I have plenty of space on my iPhone for a reasonable amount of music. Well would I like a new compact camera? Er.....noooo! My iPhone is my new compact camera!

I am loving my twenty first century telephony - even if it is at least one model out of date. To me it's perfect!

Have you visited Kokoland at Multiplaza yet?

San Salvador does not have a huge range of quality places to take toddlers to play, and although our local malls had a few options they all closed down before we had junior.

A few weeks ago I was surprised to see a new play area being built in Multiplaza mall, and today we got chance to visit and check it out. As Friday is no longer a kinder day for Chiquitito (that's another story) I was looking for something child friendly for us to do together so we headed on to Multiplaza to see what it was all about.

Situated in the basement level, it is on the opposite side of the open plan area to Le Croissant shop and next to the new Juan Valdez Colombian coffee shop. Surrounded by a low wall and an open entrance, it seems to entice passing children in a way that the Pied Piper was familiar with.

Aimed at children 1.10 metres and shorter (aproximately 6 years), Kokoland is designed on a castle theme, and surprisingly entrance was FREE! As a British person well versed with the story of Tintagel and King Arthur, it is more precisely a Camelot theme, as there is the central castle, a large dragon and a sword embedded in a stone. A little bit of Cornish history in El Salvador!

When you enter you have to remove your child's shoes, leaving their socks on. You have to accompany your child inside and you will be asked to remove your shoes. If you are not wearing socks or tights they will give you some rather sexy feet covers to wear! 

TOP TIP: take a pair of socks!

Your shoes will get stored in a cubby hole until you decide to leave.

What is there to keep your little one occupied?

In the centre of the play area is a large castle, with turrets, a lowered draw bridge, walls and two slides. The structures have a springy feel to them and are covered in a plastic fabric finish. There are steps leading up to the slides and steps that seem to lead up to the turrets. Junior wasn't sure about climbing onto the turrets, and I felt like they didn't really have a use - they could have been more enticing to children - maybe if the could have got inside them.

There is also a large dragon, made to look as if he is lying on an island, with part of his tail submerged under the water. However, Junior decided that the section of tail that was on its own was a snake, and nothing I could say would persuade him otherwise. The dragon is perfect for climbng upon and Chiquitito and the two year old playmate who arrived after us were happy to sit astride it then slide down its nose!

I guess the reason they are so fussy on footwear is due to the fancy floor finish. The carpet is padded to give a soft landing if children take a tumble, and has a very pretty pattern on it.

There is also a sword embedded in a stone, that Chiquitito was fascinated with. He was pretending to pull the sword out and was busy making sword swah buckling movements (I put that down to watching Peter Pan the movie several times this week).

Around the edge of the play area are several play zones where children can match objects etc. The pictures spin around, and whilst Junior was not particularly interested in matching the objects he loved to see how fast he could get them to spin around. There is also a mirror that distorts your image, which caused much hilarity with both my son and his playmate.

I was surprised to see they had a touch screen games centre, that looked a lot like a larger than life iPad. I was even more surprised to see the choice of games available, as they were not aimed at young children. The two games we tried was an object hunting game and a Mahjong game. There was also a message that said 1 game free, and it said you had to pay for further goes. At the moment this was not in operation, but I wonder if this is how they plan to recoup some of their costs?

Is it worth a visit?

I would not make a special journey just to use this play facility, but if you are in Multiplaza and want something to occupy your young child then it is worth a visit.

We stayed for half an hour, and I suspect that was largely due to it being totally new and there being someone else for Chiquitito to play with.

At almost three years of age there dertainly wasn't much to keep him occupied for much longer, but it might be different if a few children were playing together.