It's 2am on Wednesday night/Thursday morning and me and Lauren are sitting in the pitch black. Well, it's not entirely pitch black as we have a couple of candles on the go. I have my first power cut! The only thing working in the house is this laptop but only because I charged it earlier. There we were, happily watching some documentary on Monkeys that I had sky +'d, now we're terrified and waiting for Rusty to turn up and rescue us! Luckily he was still up as he'd been painting a shop tonight in Brentwood. When it first went off, we absolutely sh*t ourselves! We ran shaking round the house trying to find a torch (which was last seen in the hands of my dad - God only knows where he put it!), having no luck, we then lit every candle we could find. It's so silent here! It's like something out of a horror film. As only girls do; we have imagined the very worst: what if someone has cut the wires? What if there's someone in the loft? As soon as daylight comes, I am ordering ten times more security than I already have (and buying a generator!). Rusty just arrived and is now on his way to my mum's house to see if they have a power cut too. I am so glad Lauren was here with me, I don't know what I'd have done if I had been here on my own! It's scary enough with the two of us! In the hour that the power has now been off, Lauren has had to take me to the toilet twice (she had to hold the candle). Lauren is now on the phone to Eastern Electricity trying to report the power cut and also find out when we'll be back on. Like two silly girls, we went out to the power trip switch cupboard, and although we didn't really know what we were doing, we managed to figure out that it wasn't just the trip switch as the main switch is still on. I managed to spill boiling hot candle wax on my hand in the process and I also burnt the banisters on my staircase by a candle being left too close. Russ is now back and has reported that the power is off at my mum's too. At the same time, Lauren has been told that the electricity board have received two other phone calls from people in the same area and that they are sending an engineer out. Not good enough! We now have to spend the night in a scary, old, dark house in the middle of no where, ON OUR OWN. I just begged Russ to stay with us but he's covered in paint and doesn't have any other clothes with him. Plus he had to take his brother home. This is just our worst nightmare!
I hate power cuts! When I was a kid, I used to love them. They were exciting It meant cooking food on the huge open fireplace in my mum and dad's house, boiling water in a pan on it and even toasting bread on it in the mornings, Because we live in the middle of no where, power cuts round our way years ago could last for up to three days and to us, as kids, it meant three days of living like we were on some sort of fun camping holiday. Now that I'm a grown up (well, sort of), power cuts are sh*t. I don't want to sit here typing by candle light, nor do I want to sleep underneath 14 blankets (cos my central heating is run on electric, the bast*rds). I just want to be able to watch a bit more TV before going to bed with a glass of ice cold water (from my electric fridge).
What has become apparent to me during this testing time ;) is just how many things are electric and how mush I rely on them. My phones don't work cos they are electric hands-free phones, my mobile phone battery is about to die and I can't charge it. I can't watch TV, I can't listen to music. My ipod battery is fully charged but the speakers for it won't work cos they have to be plugged into a wall socket. Like I kind of mentioned above, even my fridge won't give me cold water! You mean I actually have to run it from the tap? Joke.
This is so not fun. I can feel the cold setting in already. In a few hours it's going to be minus 5 in here. If I don't write again tomorrow, have someone come looking for us cos we might have frozen out here!
On a more positive note, I did an interview on Sky News earlier on this evening. It was about bullying and how terrible a problem it has become. It went very well. My mum phoned me straight after, screaming down the phone how proud she was of me. She said I was very concise and articulate and that I looked beautiful. She always says that but for some reason I never get bored of hearing it. Funny that. She made me feel all warm inside anyway and as soon as I got home, Lauren and I went to get food then had a quick drink in Brentwood with my brother. Today had been going really well until the power cut situation. I had been a really good girl; I'd changed my bedding, cooked vege sausage sandwiches for me and Lauren, done 4 loads of washing and tumble-dried the lot too, I'd loaded the dishwasher and cleaned my bedroom. It was all going so well..... Now, I have a load of wet towels in the washing machine that are going to start smelling bad if I don't get them out and get them dry pretty quick, the temperature has already dropped significantly and Lauren is now asleep on the sofa. I have started to shiver.
Where's a big strong bloke when you need one? DAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!!!!
Unfortunately, he's at home in bed and I am considering phoning everyone I know until someone comes to rescue us. We thought Russ was going to be our Knight in shining armour but he just left us to go this one alone. This is hideous. I haven't even got Paddy here! Oh well, I suppose I had better try and get some sleep. The quicker I go to sleep, the quicker morning will come!
All you people that live in towns, who never or very rarely get power cuts; be grateful! I wouldn't change where I live for anything but the bloody countryside has a lot to answer for in terms of things actually working!! I do NOT want smelly towels!
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