Powerless

It's funny how you don't realise how much you depend on something until it's gone.

A couple of weeks ago we received a leaflet in our letter box to advise us that there would be power outages throughout the day last Thursday. We had received a similar leaflet back in March for the day we left for Brisbane. On that day, the power went off at 8:00am as advised but we were out the door 15 minutes later and on our way to the airport. Poor Dad was the one that had to come over to our house to reset the timer on our driveway lights.

The power outage was needed to replace a telegraph pole a couple of blocks away. Apparently the first time the power was out for only 20 minutes because the new pole hadn't arrived. So, this time we were expecting a longer outage (although on Wednesday afternoon my neighbour told me the new pole had still not arrived!)

Tony was going to be at work all day but I had planned to work on an assessment task for a recent yoga workshop and I needed power for light, heat, the computer equipment, and the kettle (at least). What to do?

I abandoned (put off) my assessment task and decided to get out of the house. I swapped my Wednesday morning yoga class to Thursday and would then check whether Tony's Mum was free. But just in case I did have to spend some of the day at home I boiled some water and poured it into thermoses. As far as beverages were concerned I was set for the day.

I was working on an email campaign when the power went off—if I hadn't found that typo the email would have been sent. Our house is so dark and cold without power! I went around turning off lights and appliances except the night lights that mark Chi's route to the doggy door.

After my yoga class I called Tony's Mum but there was no reply. So I ended up at Top Ryde City looking for a coffee shop with free wifi and, over a coffee and muffin, I completed the email campaign.

Another call to Tony's Mum found her at home and I spent a lovely afternoon with her catching up. Much more pleasant than spending seven hours in a cold, dark house or spending time in a cafe until I ran out of battery power or became too hyper to buy another coffee. And even though Top Ryde City could provide some retail therapy I wasn't in a shopping mood.

Seven hours without power? That's the number of hours I had to adjust our timer by. I returned home to find the driveway in darkness and evidence that a little dog (Quila) had spent the afternoon on the couch because her heating pad was cold!