Wednesday 28 May 2008

Electricity cuts

Today is St Germain's day. How do I know this? Because last year I bought a page-a-day-diary while I was in France, and every day has a saints' day listed, plus a table at the front depicting them all. I never knew there were so many!

Yesterday was a frustrating day. At 7am the house alarm woke us from sound sleep so dh had to rise and wander groggy-eyed downstairs and reset it. A power cut, he mumbled and climbed back into bed. The screech of the alarm when you're inside the house is nerve jangling - and deafening. By 9am we'd had three more power cuts and at 9.25 it went off and stayed off until 4.35pm. So that meant no computers, no lights, no tv or radio. No kettle, no oven. Had we been at work we'd never have noticed, but we're at home all day and there are so many things that need electricty. Mid-afternoon I thought I'd use the time to do a little housework - only to remember that the Hoover wouldn't work. Saved by the bell there!

Beans on toast for lunch. We have a gas hob, but had to use matches to light it instead of relying on the automatic ignition, and hold bread over the gas flame to make toast. It is a holiday week here for schools, and I pitied parents and grandparents trapped with kids who couldn't use their PCs, tv or any of the music gadgets they so take for granted these days.

The recorded message put out by Npower (our supplier) was intriguing: the fault is due to damage to an overhead power line caused by a third party.
My imagination went wild. What kind of third party manages to damage an overhead power line some sixty feet in the air? I was all for going out and searching for the break, just to see what had happened, but dh wasn't having any.

According to the BBC News, the weather was the third party, and it wasn't only Tyneside that suffered. High winds and heavy rain brought chaos from Kent to Northumberland. Check out the pictures: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6275725.stm
Tow Law is about 20 miles from us - due south!

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