a failed kettle yesterday was our first sign of a power cut. the repeatedly clicked kettle switch and the incessant alarm sound outside confirmed the power outage. the realisation came at about 2pm. still light and still warm.
we made suitable arrangements of what to do in this unexpected cut in our electrical dependancy. my option was to take the dog for a walk. this gave me an opportunity to chat to a near neighbour and he confirmed their non power situation too. we last experienced a non power moment last may. then it took about 4 hours to restore power so there seemed no need to worry about the evening.
returning from the walk i noticed the power was back on. great i thought it’s all back to normal. this was to be short lived …
somewhere in a cupboard we have a small single ring gas canister powered heater we use when we camp to make tea and heat beans. still being light and not knowing how long the power would be off i put myself to the task of unpacking the cupboard to find the stove.
to my surprise i found it quite quickly.
luckily the children were all out doing their own thing so we didn’t have to help them adapt to the lack of electrical power. cheered up by finding the little stove we were able to have a cup of tea.
i knew we had candles, tea lights and a wood burner so if the cut went into the night we would be able to remain warm and see to read and chat. i readied myself for the prospect of getting them all revved up.
we hung on till about 5 o’clock until we lit the candles and the wood burner. there’s something very special about having the living room lit by candles. the wood burner took a little while to really get going. we’ve not had the burner for long so we’re still getting used to how the outside atmospheric conditions affect how well the fire draws.
the first of the children returned and we explained the situation. they awed at the living areas lit by candles and i think i can safely say they quite liked it.
the power came back on and we readied for making some food.
off went the power again and on and off. the candles absorbed this fluctuation and we observed the power fluctuation via the neon on a 4 way shoe.
it settled down and we cooked tea.
the living room warmed up nicely and the candles gave the whole area a beautiful warm feeling.
having completed tea the children prepared to go to bed. all was going well until we heard a shreak from the bathroom. the power had once again gone off. the slightly traumatised child on the loo was helped back down stairs via the use of a torch. the prospect of going to bed with no power was met with much excitement. we adjusted the candle positions and the children settled down to go to sleep.
we felt good. we’d all eaten, children were settling down and the laptop even had enough power left in it to be able to listen to a cd. a really old collection of john lee hooker tunes accompanied our saturday night in with candles and our visual entertainment was the stove. i’m getting better at judging when i can close the air ways down so the stove does that flame along the roof thing. if you have a burner hopefully you’ll know what i mean. if you don’t have a burner please do go and visit a friend who has one and ask to see the flame in the air effect.
i’m not too sure what i was hoping to get from twitter. what it did do though was lead to ringing the power distribution company just in case we were the only house who did not have power as each time i went outside to look at the neighbours i saw their houses with electrical light.
having been reassured that we were not alone in having any power and finding out what the problem was with the supply … we turned to answering the challenge of making a cup of tea.
this time the small gas stove was easy to find, placed just inside the cupboard door. i filled two cups with water, poured them into the kettle and lit the burner.
in almost no time we were sitting snuggly on the sofa with our cups of tea. 🙂
very contently we sat and chatted in the knowledge that we’d managed to carry on without electrical power, we’d remained warm and were able to carry on around the house and even championed in the cup of tea challenge.
when the power returned i felt very relaxed and didn’t feel the need to watch or do anything other than take myself to bed and enjoy a good nights sleep. the power cut lasted 8 hours and it was actually good to have a break from electrical energy dependence.
the big energy project 