Lights Out for the Territory

[desperance]

So I came back from Sunderland (where they kept me talking for two solid hours but were kinda sweet about it, and bought a coupla books [notably Phantoms II, which you too can do, just follow the link through...]), and I stopped off at the Lit & Phil to make a tentative pencil arrangement for a launch party for "River of the World" (tentatively Thursday, April 26; pencil it in...), and then I wandered home.

To be welcomed by a chorus of alarms, because the whole street had lost its electricity. Emergency vans were just arriving, but there seemed no point in just sitting around the house waiting for them to fix things; I gave Barry his tea and went to the pub. And from there to an event at the Lit & Phil (which I had assumed would start at seven, but actually started at six - er, whoops...), and then up the hill to home again.

Where everybody else's lights were on, but mine were not. Eek. Happily, there was still a guy in an emergency van, so I tapped on his window and pointed out my darkness. He said he'd phone it through.

Nothing I could do in the dark, so I went out again. And entirely failed to find entertainment, and so ended up home again; and had a bath by candlelight, and then took the portable radio to bed.

Turns out I have no resources in the dark.

Comments

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

And here we had to live by candlelight for days after the flood. ;)

I actually quite like it. I'm also investing in some oil hurricane lamps, so I have enough light by which to read.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ah now, if there were light enough to read, I'd be fine. I think. It's that absolute loss of my most basic activity that shakes me; all the electronic gizmos - yea, even LJ - float above that, and can float away, and I'm still functional. Take away reading, and I have no function.