Power out

Posted by louisa on Friday 14 January 2011 in meta | 9 comments

3:45pm. I’m writing this using battery power – our electricity blacked out just after I got back from my afternoon dog walk a few minutes ago.

When I lived in my old house in Leeds, we only had one extended blackout in the area – perhaps a couple of momentary power outs but nothing for more than a few seconds, except for a few hours one evening in early 2001 (it was that noteable that I remember it a decade later!). Since we moved here in September 2009 though, we’ve had a few ones of five or ten minute durations and what I would consider a lot (for inside a city) on momentary glitches – almost once a month or more. I suspect due to (not excess but noteable) building expansion in the area over the last few decades, we need more power than the circuits allow and it just can’t cope very well – and who invests in infrastructure these days?

Still, while it’s light outside, it’s not a big problem and it’s a useful reminder to check our own resiliency in these situations.

• Light
  It’ll be light enough to see by for the next half an hour or so – at least in the main rooms of the house which all have big windows. The stairs from the office up into the house are dark though as is the underground storeroom – I had to use the light from my phone to go in there and check it wasn’t an obvious problem with the fuse box.

  We do have torches but I only know where one of them is – on top of a kitchen cupboard near the garden door – and the batteries in that died a couple of months ago.

  If the power out continues through the evening, we have candles – but only tealights – in the storage cupboards in the porch. (And I’m going out anyway.)

• Heating
  Our boiler is gas-powered but needs electricity too. It’s mild today – we’ve not had any heating on all day – but if it gets cold later, John could light one of our two wood-burning stoves to provide heat in either the living room or office.
• Food
  Our oven, grill & microwave all need electricity, but our hob is gas and doesn’t need electricity to spark so we could still cook on that. Our kettle is electric too so water will have to be boiled on the hob. (If needs be, we could also use the top of the woodburner as a hob replacement.)

  We have a fridge & freezer which will only keep food cool for so long. We’re not due to eat any time soon so can leave them closed which will lengthen the coldness window somewhat. If this continues all night, we’ll have make some alternative arrangements – making meal plans to use things up ASAP and possibly driving some over to a friend’s/John’s mum & dad’s for temporary storage.

• Hot waters for baths & showers
  Our shower is electric so that’s out of the question. The bath is fed from the gas-powered boiler – but as I said, that won’t work without electricity. Annoyingly, I’d planned to wash my hair about now ahead of going out tonight but unless the power comes back on soon, that’s not going to happen. I can boil some water to have a body-wash but my hair will have to wait.
• Entertainment
  We spend a lot of time on our laptops or playing computer games – my battery is going and John’s won’t last forever either so they’re out. We also like reading and I like doing crafty stuff but it’s 4:15pm now and the light is starting to go – and I fear for our eyes if we do those by tealight light! If it continues and I was around this evening, we’ve got some board games which we might be able to manage in candlelight (hurrah for contrast on Scrabble tiles ;) ) but I don’t know what John will do on his own – he might end up going out too I guess. Right now, I’m tempted to go for a nap – that doesn’t need any light!

I guess we’re not in too bad of a state – lighting is the main problem as not only will it be difficult to move around the house soon (dogs and cats with better eyesight but less brains constantly under our feet) but it also limits our entertainment options. We should get more torches (and replace the batteries in the ones we have got) and I should find out where they live! (And keeping one next to the fuse box would be very useful too.) I think I’ve also learnt that I shouldn’t leave washing my hair until the last minute when I could have done it this morning ;)

6:00pm
The power came back on at around 5:30pm so was out for about two hours. John called around 5, stuck in traffic, saying the street lights and all the power were out through the whole area – not just our little block but back to the Leeds ring road.

The power came back on *just* as I finally found and lit the tealights. In hindsight, I should have used the dwindling daylight to find the tealights as they weren’t were I thought they were!

I had a very quick shower as soon as the power came back on – in case it went off again – serenaded by the neighbourhood’s burglary alarms. ;)

Preparing for winter

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 27 July 2010 in growing | 1 comment

I claim to be rather disorganised (usually as a bluff for why I haven’t done something I don’t want to do…) but gardening – and more simple life in general – forces you to plan ahead. Despite it being the middle of the summer (in the calendar, if not observably from the weather), I spent most of my gardening time over the weekend thinking about the late autumn, winter and next spring.

I planted on leeks, tended to my many, many winter squash, sowed spring cabbages & attempted my third batch of kale (the first lot got too hot, the second lot got too wet…). I also fretted slightly about where I’m going to plant my garlic when the time comes later in the year – I was hoping to have a good chunk of a bed for it but I’m not sure there will be room. Lack of decent bed space is one of the biggest problems with our garden but I don’t have the time to tend to both our garden and an allotment (if I could get one…) so I’m going to have to keep working around that. I’ve also got mental calendar notes for starting autumn-sowing cauliflower and over-winter lettuce.