When there's a power cut

Not my pumpkins but ones growing at the Botanic Gardens of Wales when we were there at the Fair early in the month.  My veg plot is just an overgrown mess of weeds and Needs Sorting . . .

Anyway, the title today alludes to Yesterday, when we were busy doing all the things which involve electricity (as you do) and all of a sudden, lights out and a dawning realization that the scheduled power cut we'd had a letter about had come to pass.

Well - since I had intended to spend the morning on the sewing machine, that plan was out.  So were vacuuming, baking, peeling and chopping apples to cook up, and Staying Warm.

There had been a sharp frost overnight and whilst plan no. 1 could have involved a long walk, I decided against it as all the flat routes are along the bitterly cold valley bottom (when you walk down our hill towards the river, it is noticably colder from a point about half way down and by the bridge it's a frost pocket.)  I am one of those people who gets hot very quickly and cold very quickly and the older I get, the less I enjoy being cold!  No. 2 plan was gardening - same applies.  No. 3 plan was painting our bedroom (Still) and I needed good light for that.

Anyway, instead, we lit the wood burner in the sitting room so we had one warm room to retire to should we need it.  In the event, we discovered a whole new way to get warm!

I was busy in the kitchen pricing items (gleaned from Tam on her last visit - she'd been having a clear out of vintage things she hadn't sold on her occasional stall) for our next Fair on Saturday when the phone rang.  Not the one in the hall, which relies on electricity, but the upstairs one which is plugged in straight to a BT line.  My dearly beloved had been to the hospital this week to have his eyes measured for new lenses as he is on the list for a cataract operation (they reckoned it would be next summer due to long waiting lists). They asked when he would LIKE to have it and he laughingly said "Tomorrow!"  Anyway, blow me down, it was the hospital saying they had two cancellations for Saturday morning and of course, he booked himself in immediately.  Of course, our Fair was . . . Saturday, so we have had to cancel that.

Then we decided to sort out the beds in the attic, as we had Gabby's other bed back as the flat she has just moved into in Cardiff is fully furnished (in a somewhat spartan manner!)  First of all we had to move the single bed up there into what used to be the sleepover room (but it will have to be sold as we have no use for it).  Then we put the upholstered ends and sides of the bed together - not easy as you had to slide A into B and they weren't playing ball. Then, as we started to match the other bits we got hotter and hotter and I was soon down to a t-shirt and thinking about opening windows.  We have found out that OH will have to put in blocks to replace the compressor lifting arms (one was bent) and so we stopped there.

I managed to catch up on all the electrically-powered jobs in the afternoon and made a big pan of veggie soup - when it gets cold, it's soup making time here.

What do you do during a power cut?

Powercut . . .

Only during a lengthy powercut on a dark torrentially-raining late Autumn morning do you have any idea of what life was like here in the days before electricity, which never arrived here until the 1950s or thereabouts. About the same time as the phone in fact.

The kitchen is so dark that I can barely see the far wall. Only the light of 4 candles illuminating the immediate area surrounding my notebook allows me to see what I am writing. The candles throw a little echo of light onto the copper pans on the Hergom stove and highlight any uneven-ness on the copper frying pan hanging on the wall above the bressamer beam, giving it a lopsided grinning face.

(Above photo taken in normal daylight plus electric lights, but without a flash on the camera.)

The room is silent, bar the purring of cats, who are glad to be inside on such a beastly day, and the incessant heavy rain falling like stair-rods outside, pounding on the outhouse roof and dripping without pause from the winter-flowering clematis which seeks to extend its range across the kitchen window.


I was lucky enough to get my early morning cup of Earl Grey before the power went, finally, after a couple of hiccoughing warnings. Now it is too dark to see anything. The hand that automatically reached to turn on Radio 4 for company has beenstilled. Breakfast has been eaten. Dishes left to drain overnight put away. One of the two candle-lamps in the hall has been lit so we can see to phone the electricity company.

How on earth were chores managed pre-electricity in such a gloomy house? You cannot see to clean, to dust and laying a fire in the sitting room would be done by touch, as if blindfolded. A washing tub and a posser would while away an hour or so, but the eventual cleanliness would be an act of faith. Breadmaking would be possible and anything in the sink, which now has a window over it, but only for the past 30 years. The range, once lit, would brighten up the inglenook, but cobwebs in corners would never have seen light of day except on the brightest summer afternoon.

I can only assume that there were many many oil lamps, some of them overhead ones, and many candles employed because without them you can barely see your hand in front of your face!



A wee bitty wet outside - and flooding locally. We couldn't get out down the hill as the river was across the road . . .