In the dark!

Last night the electricity went off shortly after midnight. Staggering around in the dark, using our mobile phones as torches until we located the actual torches, we could hear neighbours exclaiming to each other about the sudden onset of total darkness. Except, of course, that it wasn't total darkness because the street lamps were still operating perfectly. Houses further up the road seemed to be still connected. Just our little row then! 

The last time this happened, a couple of weeks back, it lasted for about 45 minutes. So we expected it to be much the same. However, when it got to 1.00 am and there was still no power, even Phil gave up and came to bed. There was little point in using up the computer battery, especially as the internet connection had gone with the power. 

This morning, to my surprise, there was still no electricity when I got up at 8.30. I spoke to one of the neighbours not long afterwards. Usually she complains about the over-brilliant new street lamps they installed last year. Taller and more powerful than the previous lot, one of them is right outside her bedroom window and prevented her sleeping until she put up blackout curtains. This morning, she said, she was glad of the brightness. At least she could find her clothes and make sure she had matching socks and so on. 

Ever efficient, she had already spoken to the electricity people, who confirmed that it was just our little block that was suffering. They thought it might be a fuse box on the end wall of our house causing the bother. They needed to go and get ladder as they had not come equipped for such eventualities. 

So I walked into the village to buy milk. If we might be condemned to a diet of cereal, and sandwiches, we needed to get supplies in. And I walked rather than ran because electric showers don't work during power cuts. A cold shower in January is not to my liking. Besides, I prefer to get out to towels that have been on a heated towel rail. How quickly we accustom ourselves to little bits of luxury. 

By the time I came back from the village there were ladders against the end wall of our house. However, the electrician told us that there was no problem with the fuse box. It must be something to do with the cable from the box to the mains supply. Further investigation was needed. Power would be restored asap. If he failed to locate the problem with the mains supply he would organise a generator to be connected to the fuse box and light - and heat, and cooking facilities - would return to all our houses. 

As the efficient neighbour with the streetlamp outside her bedroom window filled a flask for us so that we could make a hot drink - she has a gas hob - and then went across the road to ask a neighbour with power if she could charge her mobile phone, which was completely out of battery, I wondered if this is what the end of the world could be like. The prefect scenario for a science fiction story. Our central heating is gas fired but needs electricity to fire it up. We have no cooking facilities. The neighbour with the gas hob can use the hob but not her gas oven as that needs electricity to ignite it. Goodness knows how dark it is in the basement flat next door as the only source of light today is the French windows. For once I am relieved not to have been organised enough to have a gas fire (almost certainly electrically ignited) installed in the living room. We still have the necessary materials to light a fire there! 

In the post-nuclear holocaust science fiction world our electronically charged devices will gradually fail. As the generators gradually stop working our electricity supply will go and we will not be able to recharge our computers, mobile phones and iPads. The instantaneous communication we have grown used to will disappear. The poor idiots who can only cook in the microwave will be condemned to eat cold food. The rest of us might improvise some kind of cooking over open fires. But the owners of modern houses that have been built without chimneys or fireplaces. will have something of a problem there. 

Time to start laying in stocks now!