Christmas 2013 after the storm and before electricity.....

That's not totally true as thankfully due to the staff of UK power we did have electricity for some of Christmas day  and we were very thankful for it.  Many of their staff didn't get home to celebrate with their own families and despite the frustration of the lack of information, I also have to say that my thanks went to Tammy in the call centre who kept her word and kept ringing us back even if she could not get any more information to us, it was nice not to feel as if we have been forgotten.

The storm hit us on Monday 23rd in the evening, we lost power just as mum and I were sitting down to watch a film, don't think I will be watching that one again in a hurry!  The weather had been bad along the route for mum but got to pick her up from Gatwick and get her back home where we had an early dinner thank goodness.

Christmas Eve was a washout as we had no power, no heating, no hot drinks apart from meeting our neighbours in the evening and finally getting a flask of hot water as they had a gas hob.  The less we remember about that the better especially since the evening went so slowly and the number of times we bumped into tables etc..... well.  Sadly because of this power cut we lost a number of our fish from our salt water tank but Martin stayed up all night and agitated the water every twenty or so minutes and we kept at least half of them alive.  It was quite sad to come down the next morning and find a number of them dead.  I know they are only fish but you hate to see any living creature suffer.  We were all safe and well so we were very thankful.  We also found that we had lost much of our front fence and a tree had fallen across our new neighbours lawn at the back .  We will sort all this out at some point but all in good time, no one was hurt.

Christmas Day dawned, a cold and bleak one at first.  Mum, Sarah and I stumbled off to church not feeling our best, as with no hot water, we could not shower..... we smelt fairly sweet though so no one backed away.... Church was quick and would you believe it there was no heating in it, despite the fact that they had power.  To say mum was disgusted ..................well she uttered her disgust as soon as we entered.  Thank goodness it was over quickly.  The season of goodwill was not extending too far at this point.

Sitting in church I thought that I might just get the bbq out when we got home.  I knew I had sausage and bacon in the car..............well not much point putting it into a warm fridge so I had left it in the car overnight...Off came the cover of the bbq, on went the gas bottle and soon it was alight with the smell of sausage and bacon and a pan of boiling water.  Breakfast was yummmy although I did question what I had done when the sky emptied in a rain shower whilst |I was cooking...

  

They were very well received by one and all and Sarah even said it was one of the best breakfasts yet on Christmas morning.  We thought we would battle on and think of other ingenious things to cook later in the day.  About 11 ish I went upstairs to get something, can't remember what and I saw a UK Power van go past our house and stop.................. well I ran downstairs without whatever I had gone up for..... Daniel and I went off on a reccie to see what was happening and met four very nervous looking engineers and lots of neighbours whom we had not met before.  Got all the info and thankfully they managed to connect some of us back onto the power supply.  Sadly some people are still off as I type, we may go off again when they try and reconnect the other people.  We were so pleased I went back down the road with a tub of Quality Street to share.  I did ask if it was safe to put the turkey in?

Christmas was back on..................................  Turkey went in, Daniel did the sprouts, mum the potatoes and swede and Martin sorted out the fish tanks.  Sarah went to check on the rest of the menagerie.  We then decided that if dinner was back on the rest of Christmas was, so mum finished wrapping her pressies she had bought and left here, bit difficult to do by candlelight the night before.  We sat down in our back living room, gathered around the tree about three and opened away and left the turkey cooking.

 

Daniel is seen with his blanket around his knees as he had resorted to clean shorts......he had been asked to bring his washing basket down on the Monday but hadn't and was recycling clothes....think he has learned his lesson.  So after all the trauma we had a lovely Christmas and ate our dinner and relaxed in the warmth.....Not too bad after all.