Thursday 5 January 2012

Blackout

During the big storms our power went off and stayed off for 30 hours. Dark days indeed.
On Tuesday morning we woke to very very windy weather, probably the worst we've experienced here and as I lay in bed listening to the tiles dancing I thought the whole roof would blow away. Mr FF brought out the camping gear, our little gas stove that had difficulty warming a pan of water, our lantern whose batteries had past their use by date and gave less light than a candle, his wind up torch and our battery radio. Thus we existed for a day and a half. We opened the doors of the stove and heated simple food and water on the fire, giving everything an interesting smoky flavour. I knitted by the light of two candles, stocking stitch was all I could manage, Mr FF read with his torch and we listened to a live football match on the radio, Tuesday was a long evening. Our bedroom was Baltic but a hot water bottle each and the torch within easy reach in case we needed to get out in the night saw us settled in.
Mr FF did have the benefit of his iPad but there wasn't that much left in the battery and he said he wanted to save that in case he needed to send an emergency email. I've never heard of one of those, I thought if we had an emergency we might use the phone or go out in the car so I found little comfort in the idea that we an email in hand.
Wednesday we decided to go out for the day, we managed showers as we had loads of hot water from the stove but without the pump there wasn't much flow and I found the top of my body warmed while my legs stayed cold. It was also dark in the cubicle but as I explained to Mr FF that wasn't a problem as I know my way round my body pretty well. Getting in and out of the shower was invigorating but at least we were clean while we traipsed round a few supermarkets that were quite chilly. We ended up in the cafe in Ikea, which was relatively cosy and a plate of meatballs and mashed potato cheered me up no end but then mashed potato is my happy food. We had to resist the temptation to snuggle down into a bed in one of the room sets, watched a bit of telly in another and came home late afternoon. We practically held our breath driving home in case the village was still in darkness, the first part had power but the middle of the village was off so we didn't have great hopes as we turned off the main road where the street lights were still off towards our house. Hurray, we had power, it had been on for about an hour when we go home. Last night was bliss, heat in more than one room, light, telly, internet, proper cooking. Driving along yesterday we'd seen so much destruction, lots of trees down, fences blown away, several garden greenhouses completely destroyed. We were lucky to escape any real damage, so grateful to have our power back and still have email to spare.

12 comments:

  1. It's good to know that you survived. We take electricity so much for granted that we miss it badly when it goes.

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  2. Thank goodness for stoves and camping gear - they have saved us in many a powercut! Very windy here last night but we still have power.
    Happy New Year!

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  3. Poor you Jenny, it must have been awful. We are so used to having all our mod cons, life is very inconvenient and uncomfortable without them. Glad things are getting back to normal again for you.

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  4. Phew!! You survived. My mind has been on all the homeless people that we seem to have in every town these days - I can't imagine what it feels like to be out in weather like this. xxxx

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  5. Glad you are ok, that wind was something else on Tuesday, I was scared stiff!

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  6. All sounds very pioneering. Reminds me of the power cuts in the 70's when we were heading towards our A levels. My friend had to revise in her dad's car. I was luckier as we were on the local hospital's circuit.

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  7. Those winds were pretty terrific though, so I'm glad you were only out for 30 hours, could have been much worse. Still, no compensation for losing our creature comforts is there? Mashed potato is my happy food too, actually, any type of potato! Thanks for the sock encouragement, hope to get to the heel at the weekend, been too busy the last couple of nights to pick the needles up.

    Hugs
    Brenda

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  8. When we moved into this house, we had an all-electric cooker, but knowing that we were liable to have power cuts, we bought a dual fuel one - the hob is bottled gas, so we can still cook and heat water during power cuts. Fortunately we escaped the worst of the winds - it was scary enough watching the tv coverage!!

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  9. Oh dear! It was pretty breezy down here too, but not as wild as where you are. Glad things are returning to normal. Ros

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  10. I always live in fear of a power cut when it is windy and I walk around the cottage with a torch. This time we were lucky.

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  11. Hi Jenny
    Happy New Year to you and yours.
    Just wanted to let you know that I've nominated you for an award over on my blog. Don't worry if you're not the 'award' type, I won't be offended if you don't want to do anything with it!
    All the best
    Justine

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  12. Hi Jenny,

    You have certainly had some adventures!! We are so used to the conveniences in our lives and it's hard to do without them. I hope the day never comes when we have to.
    We have an airtight wood burning stove and it keeps us warm in our -30 weather and we can cook and boil on it if we need to.

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