Power Cuts.

A fine eighties Rock Ballard album which, in tandem with a rather fine red, represented my Friday night hedgehog muse. To the Welsh Warbling of Bonnie Tyler, I raced up soaring peaks of descriptive prose, and carved great swathes of laugh out loud sentences.

And then the power went off. And with it an oft repeated ode to the importance of regular backup. Left with no music to power the now stilled electronic press, only the wine remained. And, because streetlighting has yet to reach the lesser lanes of the village, the precise location of a now much needed drink was lost in the darkness.

Treading carefully to avoid a sticky liquid warranty claim, a journey into the inky blackness of the cellar was rewarded with the emergency candles. My joy was spiked by the bare-footed discovery of children’s toy’s left abandoned – sharp side up – on every flat surface in the house.

With candlelight, a jumper and a mechanical bottle opener, the night passed slowly but not without a little Dunkirk Spirit sort of pleasure. Occasional beams of light from battery operated devices* refracted against the sightless windows, mixed with screams of pain as more toys were located using the bleeding foot approach.

We gave up around 10pm, navigating woozily upwards in the medium of human pinballs. Some five hours later, my cosy dreams suddenly took on a disturbing edge of household surround sound. Televisions barked loudly with zero viewer programming, clocks chirped awake, lights blinked into action, and alarms whined of forgotten passcodes. Ten minutes later all was again quiet, kids put back to bed, alarm stilled, tv’s electronically terminated and lights darkened.

Peace descended on the house except for my feeble moaning. In my haste to manually cut the power, I’d forgotten about the caltraps lying in wait. And the fantastic article, what happened to that? Gone, neither saved nor remembered, lost to the four winds of the storm that broke the power. Ah well, no point in raising the bar really – you were just have assumed I’d stolen it from somebody with talent 😉

* No. Absolutely not what you’re thinking. And since when did they come with a torch on the end?

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