NotSheep

Of town, that is. The Dark Side of Town. Because the electricity went out.

We were glad to be indoors yesterday afternoon, glad to be listening to the wind outside rather than out in it. But in the end, Scratchy had to go out in it anyway, because while dinner was being prepared, all possible methods of cooking it disappeared. The lights had been flickering all afternoon, so I wasn’t very surprised, but it doesn’t usually take too long for the power to return here. We waited for a while, but when it wasn’t back within half an hour or so, I figured we might be without electricity for a few hours, so we started making plans to deal with the problematic areas.

Dinner: Scratchy headed off to see how widespread the power outage was – i.e., if the local take-aways were affected. They weren’t – except that they were very, very busy – hm, I wonder why that was – so he returned with boxes of pizza and we ate it by candlelight in the living-room (that being easier than carrying lots of candles in to the kitchen)

Light: No problem there. As well as the various decorative candles in the living-room, I’d a box of tall candles stashed in the top of a cupboard in the kitchen, and we have numerous wind-up flashlights.

Heat: We have a gas fire – but it turned out we’d no gas. However the house wasn’t cold when the power went off, so we made sure all the windows were shut and then closed the blinds and curtains a bit early. Then we made plans to have a sleepover in my bedroom, on the basis that we’d all benefit from each other’s body-heat.

Entertainment: No internet! I could have hooked up a laptop with a functioning battery and a dial-up modem and plugged it straight into a phone-socket – but that would have required finding one (I’m not even sure if my laptop has a dial-up modem in it!) and using dial-up until the laptop battery died, and it really didn’t seem worth it. So instead, I read aloud to the boys by candlelight, and then, when they were all asleep, I read to myself, and then, when bored with that, I played a stupid game on my mobile phone.

I think everyone enjoyed being read to, but Jack was particularly thrilled. I read from the first Harry Potter book – a story he’s familiar with, but only from the movies. At the end of the first chapter, he was almost bouncing with excitement. “Is it better than the movies?” I asked. “Yes!” he shouted with delight

Barney wanted to sleep by the window in my room – I pointed out he’d be cold. He looked confused and pointed to the radiator. Erm… He also put his mobile phone on the charger when the battery was low

The power went off at about 5pm, and returned at about 11.30pm. It’s not really that long, and I know that there are lots of areas which regularly lose electricity for much longer than that – I’ve even lived in some of them! – but when you live somewhere like that, you’re prepared for it. You’d have an alternative way of cooking, and an alternative way of heating the house, for example. And you’d probably already know that you should have the number for the electricity supplier written down somewhere, rather than relying on being able to google it…