Ok lights out everybody!

There i was doing my last shift yesterday before my week off and all the power go's out.  In a millisecond as prescribed by the dreaded HSE on come the safety lights and some of the shoppers even just carried on shopping.  Luckily the self serve tills must have some kind of back up power and the store was cleared of customers with their shopping that way

Along comes the shop manager and says the power might be out for 3 hours, 20 minutes later it all came back on.  By this time we had pulled down all the screens on the chillers and covered the stuff in the open top freezers with cardboard.

Everything back to normal - - - well no.  20 minutes later the phones went down and our hand held computers stopped working.

The reason for the problem at first appeared to be something that had happened down towards Derby but as i left the store I heard someone say that a sub station at Winster had blown up.  As Winster is in our area as I arrived home i realised the power was out!

A quick check on the fish pond confirmed it as the pumps for filter and air were not running.  The fish looked ok but obviously the house was completely dead.

2 hours until dark and so I pulled out the camping gas cooker and found the candles, lit the log burner etc so we were all set, though fully expecting the power to come back on any minute.

Dinner was easy with the top of the log burner and the camping stove utlilised, and afterwards we sat in the dark with the candles and torches going.  Both kittens learned that candles singe the whiskers a treat! and are now sorting lop sided facial hairy bits!

Off to bed and fully expecting the power on come on later --- and later ---- and later.   Burgler alarms whailing and ringing at 3.30 oh deep joy!

5.30 get up at normal time and just about to light the gas stove when the power comes back on, then off, then on.  This carried on until around 6.30 and here we are at 7.00 something with it looking ok!! Could this be the start of things to come this winter, with the Daily Express already predicting power problems