Tuesday 19 January 2010

Difficult Days

It's been a tough couple of days; we had a power cut yesterday, from ten in the morning. I have to say I'm not sure I realised how much I relied on the phone, internet, and lights. Heating we managed without as we're got a wood burner so at least the living room was warm but in a hark back to old snobbishness about Hastings days all I can say is; 'The bloody countryside!'

This would never happen in the city, or at least not for over 24 hours; for some reason it took that amount of time to find a generator that worked so we can have electricity at least temporarily. Apparently something caused the local sub station to blow up and catch on fire meaning a little block of houses near me were all affected. We don't have a gas light, and the battery camping light - oh, yes, maybe I bought a kids one because I preferred the way it looks, and it did not really work. And the other lighting epiphany was that candlelight isn't actually very bright at all. So we could only just about read with torches, which isn't fun; we tried to watch a film on the computer but it ran out of power; and we sat in near darkness before having a cold wash and bed.

Oh, and in the end, all the food in the freezer has gone bad. It'd have been OK if we'd cooked it up in the dark last night and had a party. But we didn't as I naively assumed the freezer would be OK if I didn't open it and that the power surely would not be off for more than 12 hours.

Right, normal service resumed, grump over.

5 comments:

Sandra Morris said...

Blimey!

We get the occasional short power cut from time to time but nothing as extreme or frequent as yours!

If worst came to worst we have heating, lighting and cooking facilities in the campervan so we could decamp outside.

Is your freezer food covered by your house insurance? Might be worth putting in a claim...

J said...

We, as you know, get powercuts all the time, 13 last year in the end. After laughing, all be it kindly, yesterday when you mentioned it I realised that I shouldn't have as we managed to get our first two powercuts of the year this morning. In probability it was the sub-station coming back online.

I hadn't realised how long yours had last though, not good. The electricity company has a claim line that you phone. You'll find the number on your bills or at least the starting point from which you'll end up choosing many buttons and hash options before finally getting a human being!

Give them a call and they should re-imburse your costs.

If it happens again, let me know, I have some great gas camping lights that last ages, give off brilliant (in both senses) light and rechargeable batteries that'll keep O&J's torches going that you are more than welcome to borrow.

Bev said...

Thanks Jen, yes we planned to buy some camping gas lights now...
And yes, Sandra freezer food is covered but we've got a fifty pound excess and as we don't eat meat - well I'm not sure it quite reached fify pounds.
Good tip Jen - about ringing them to reimburse costs, I'll try that today.

Boadicea said...

I noticed the other night that the power was out for a section of Old London Road but didn't realise it had gone on so long. A few years ago we had a power cut on Boxing Day, which was slightly inconvenient. Luckily we cook with gas and still have gas fires downstairs to supplement the radiators when power cuts turn the boiler off. That was a fire in the substation, too, outside the Co-Op, and when they put in a temporary generator some kind person drained the diesel out of it so we were without power again!

Bev said...

Fancy nicking the diesel from a generator. Some people, etc etc.