The_man_from_del_monte
11-Oct-06, 23:59
I'm not normally one for getting up in the middle of the night but a call of nature awoke me from my slumber at about 3am this morning. I rolled over to flick the switch on the bedside lamp, nothing, looked over to the cabinet with my night time listening rig in it and no signs of life (usually the bank of Blue / Purple LEDs serves as a guiding light all by themselves) Well..... all I had to hand was a trusty Zippo lighter (yeh I sleep with it next to me, much more comforting than a teddy bear) so I sparks her up and, would you believe it, she had run out of petrol.
I don't want to go into graphic detail regarding the toilet situation in this place (still awaiting a plumber to fit one and feed some hot and cold water through a 3 foot thick wall into the new end of the building) but let's just say the 50 yard walk to the nearest toilet, in pitch darkness, was not doable.... I couldn't see my nose, let alone navigate my body through the house to the nearest watering hole.
Anyways, I digress, it sooned dawned on me that there had been a power cut (either that or my electricity had been cut off for no apparent reason) peeked out the window, after tripping over a cable :confused , to see the entire area was pitch black... managed to open the window and.... I won't go into detail regarding the maneuver I managed to perform in total darkness but, let's just say, it hit the spot ;)
So, back to my original question (without addle waffle), are power cuts quite common in these neck of the woods and did anybody else find themselves in total darkness early this morning?
Just to be on the safe side I've dug out a couple of wind up torches (very good, you wind them up for a minute and then get about 30 minutes of light, no batteries) and have placed them in strategic positions bedside. I don't want to be caught short again and am going to go with the stitch in time saves nine and be prepared way of thinking.
Isn't it amazing how a power cut gets you into thinking about "everything" survival related? I was thinking if the power goes down for 3 weeks (unlikely) then we're into a real alpha male survival situation and, thus, it's necessary to prepare for that eventuality by stocking up on logs for the fire, candles, tinned meat (no time for vegetarian shopping in this scenario), petrol, gas, oil, weapons (to fend those off who didn't think ahead), chocolate, crisps, nuts, out of date Big Macs... anything you can grab......
You've probably gathered, from the above, that I'm new here... thing is I'm used to 24/7/365 "power" and, must confess, that this morning's outage was a new vibe for me (I experienced the massive power cuts in the 70's and have done the occasional bout of "camping" but we are now talking 2006) hell I've got a Nuclear on my doorstep and a "power cut"?
hehe....
I don't want to go into graphic detail regarding the toilet situation in this place (still awaiting a plumber to fit one and feed some hot and cold water through a 3 foot thick wall into the new end of the building) but let's just say the 50 yard walk to the nearest toilet, in pitch darkness, was not doable.... I couldn't see my nose, let alone navigate my body through the house to the nearest watering hole.
Anyways, I digress, it sooned dawned on me that there had been a power cut (either that or my electricity had been cut off for no apparent reason) peeked out the window, after tripping over a cable :confused , to see the entire area was pitch black... managed to open the window and.... I won't go into detail regarding the maneuver I managed to perform in total darkness but, let's just say, it hit the spot ;)
So, back to my original question (without addle waffle), are power cuts quite common in these neck of the woods and did anybody else find themselves in total darkness early this morning?
Just to be on the safe side I've dug out a couple of wind up torches (very good, you wind them up for a minute and then get about 30 minutes of light, no batteries) and have placed them in strategic positions bedside. I don't want to be caught short again and am going to go with the stitch in time saves nine and be prepared way of thinking.
Isn't it amazing how a power cut gets you into thinking about "everything" survival related? I was thinking if the power goes down for 3 weeks (unlikely) then we're into a real alpha male survival situation and, thus, it's necessary to prepare for that eventuality by stocking up on logs for the fire, candles, tinned meat (no time for vegetarian shopping in this scenario), petrol, gas, oil, weapons (to fend those off who didn't think ahead), chocolate, crisps, nuts, out of date Big Macs... anything you can grab......
You've probably gathered, from the above, that I'm new here... thing is I'm used to 24/7/365 "power" and, must confess, that this morning's outage was a new vibe for me (I experienced the massive power cuts in the 70's and have done the occasional bout of "camping" but we are now talking 2006) hell I've got a Nuclear on my doorstep and a "power cut"?
hehe....