Back to basics

Originally posted March 12, 2008

For the next few weeks I am working more than usual and I know that I shall find it difficult to post and visit. So I have decided to rerun some posts that I wrote before my blog was read.

Last night something woke me up at about 1.40 am. As I lay half asleep, with the bedside light switched on, listening to the wind which, I thought, did not sound as bad as they had forecast, the bedside light flickered and went out. My heart sank and suddenly I was wide awake - the power had gone off. The bulb in the bedside light is one off the new low voltage light bulbs and has only been in use for a few weeks, so it should have a few more years of life in it. I had taken the precaution of taking a torch to bed with me, just in case the power should go off. So I got up and had a prowl around. There were lights on in the distance, but everywhere around was pitch black, as you would probably expect it to be at 1.50 am. In the study, the UPS had kicked in and was bleeping away keeping the computer going for now. I went downstairs to check the fuse box, nothing had tripped - so it was definitely a power cut. There was nothing else to do but to go back to bed and hopefully to sleep. Once back in bed my mind kept going over how awful things had been when gales had left us without power for nearly three days in January last year. There is no gas where we live so we are all electric apart from the oil fired central heating boiler. We had had to manage with candles for light, a log fire plus several layers of clothes for warmth and the generator, of a builder who was doing a small job for us, to boil the kettle.

Eventually, I slept and subsequently woke to a cold and powerless morning. At least the water was still hot, but breakfast was orange juice and cereal - no chance of the full English this morning. Contacting the power company to check that they knew that the power was off and to find out when it would be back on again was another minor trial. Our new fangled electric cordless phones do not work without power and my mobile phone needed charging. Luckily we still have a old corded phone. Then it was off to the camping section of a nearby garden centre to purchase a portable gas ring powered by bottled butane gas, so that I could make a warm drink. Power is wonderful when you have it and managing without it is a feat. I could only write this is my head until the power was back on again.