Blogtober 2024 : Day 16

Well, today was not the day I expected it to be!

Lying in bed this morning, I could hear the rain outside and the ticking of the radiators as the heating came on, and that always makes me feel very grateful for a warm and cosy bed – but when I reached for the light switch, nothing happened.  You know, that moment when you think, “Aargh, something in the fuse box has tripped!” and that means disturbing the cats to get into the garage and then climbing over things to get to the fuse box (yes, I know, decluttering the garage is on my list along with everywhere else!).  I thought that perhaps I would just stay in bed a little bit longer because I could live without the light on for a while … but when I checked the time on my phone, I could see that the wifi was out and that meant a power cut.

It’s a funny coincidence as it was only the other day that a leaflet on what to do in a power cut came through the door with the post, and now here we were without power.  A bleep on my phone a few minutes later told me we were also without water … definitely not the start to the day I expected!  I keep meaning to put a box together with candles and matches and a charged power brick (my laptop battery was on 11% so even if I’d wanted to work offline, I wouldn’t have long) but of course I haven’t got round to it, and thankfully there was no need for candles at 8.00am!

My plan for today had been to reply to all your comments that I have read but not responded too – I have loved reading them all, and especially the ones for yesterday’s post about the story books, I’m glad it’s not just me who holds onto them! 🙂   I was also going to get a head start on today’s post early, and I had a few other things that I needed to do in between a chiropractor appointment and some errands.  No wifi put paid to that plan!  No problem, I thought, I’ll create a mobile hotspot with my phone but whether the rain affected the signal (oh my goodness, it has not stopped today, there is so much flooding!) or everybody else in the area affected by the power cut was using up all the mobile data juice (is that even possible?), it wasn’t happening.  There was nothing for it but to put my laptop to one side and Do Something Else.

I decided that I would start clearing out the airing cupboard.

Our airing cupboard used to have a ginormous water tank in it, but when we moved into the house we had the old boiler replaced with a combi boiler which heats the water so we didn’t need the tank.  The old airing cupboard became a storage cupboard for sheets and towels just as it would have done previously … but taking out the ginormous water tank meant more space and it’s a law of nature that the amount of stuff you have expands to fill the available space and who am I to argue with laws of nature?  I’ve got to say, I wish I had argued a bit harder now that I’m at the point where we open the door and things fall out, but today was going to be the day that changed.

Or maybe not that much.  I took three boxes off a shelf  and decided that three boxes was quite an achievement for one day.  To be fair, these are the three boxes of stuff that we use the most and are the easiest to reach so everything gets dropped into them; there was quite a lot to go through and I only had limited before I had to go out.

I was surprised to find it was quite emotional.  Oh, there’s nothing emotional about deodorant and shampoo, but also in that heap on the rug were travel plugs and sun cream from when we last went on a family holiday abroad (before Covid!), microfibre towels used by one or other of the girls for a camping trip, a well-travelled packet of Uno cards, a Postman Pat face flannel that my Mum bought for big daughter and which never got used …

Honestly, it’s a wonder I ever manage to throw anything out!  Maybe this just wasn’t quite the right time to be looking at things from when the girls were smaller now they have both left, and there will be reason why these pottery specimens were hidden away in the airing cupboard and not out on display …

but all of a sudden, they were works of art in my hand and they have gone back into the airing cupboard for me to look at another day.  Umpteen half-used bottles of sun cream and some ancient insect repellent, however, were straight in the bin!

Talking about things in the bin, I finally made it to Tesco with my big bags of soft plastic recycling today.  Our household collection doesn’t include soft plastics but I discovered a while ago that Tesco (and other supermarkets) have containers where you can drop off lots of it in one go.  I couldn’t believe what a difference it made to the amount that goes in our dustbin!

I’d spent ages trying to work out how to recycle cat food pouches and here was the answer!  Our cats are eating dry food at the moment as Astrid is still on her hypoallergenic diet (the current flavour is egg and insect … I prefer egg and cress! 🙂  ) but we used to go through so many pouches and I always felt bad about throwing them away.

Ooh, whilst I’m on the subject of recycling, I have downloaded an app called Bower where you can scan your recycling and earn points and money for doing it.  When we went to Stockholm a few years ago, we noticed that there were recycling stations in the supermarkets which gave you cashback for recycling and we thought that was a really good idea and that someone should do it in the UK.  Well, someone (from Sweden!) has now, and through an app which makes it easier for anyone to recycle anywhere.

I’m not so bothered about the cash but I like getting the text that tells me how many items I’ve recycled.  So far, without making any special effort other than scanning what would be going in the recycling bin anyway, I’ve recycled 222 items and saved 367g of CO2 which is the equivalent of 15 minutes of hair-drying 🙂  I would never have guessed that we’d had that many items in just a few short weeks, but you can scan anything with a barcode so even if you tend to cook from scratch, you’ll probably find that you’ve got more than you think and they all add up.  For some people, though, the cash incentive might be enough to encourage them to recycle more instead of just throwing it away.

Yes, I do realise that by scanning items I am giving away data about what we buy and eat, but I figured that the supermarkets already know that so it doesn’t make any difference (to me, anyway) if someone looks at the packaging from what I’ve already bought.  For full disclosure, Bower is currently crowdfunding and I think it’s a great idea so I’ve invested in it, but irrespective of that, I still think it’s a great idea and would probably have told you about it!

Right, it’s 9.30pm and I am going to post this whilst I’ve had chance to write it (the electricity came back on at about 6pm so that was a long day without any – I was glad I was out for most of it!) and fingers crossed, everything will be fine again for a while.  I will put that power cut box together, though, and in cases you are thinking of doing the same, here’s the advice from our electricity company of how to prepare:

• A torch with charged batteries or a wind up dynamo torch. You can also buy battery-powered lights that plug into a power socket and come on automatically during a power cut.
• Candles – these are useful but be careful where you put them and keep them out of the reach of children.
• At least one phone that doesn’t run off of the mains supply; i.e. an analogue telephone or mobile.
• A fully charged power bank, so you may be able to receive updates on the incident via your mobile phone.
• A battery-powered radio and fresh batteries, as you may be able to receive updates on the incident.
• A warm blanket.
• Portable heaters – they act as a good alternative to heating systems which often don’t work during a power cut. However, take care where you put them and never leave children alone with them.

Hope you are keeping safe, dry and warm where you are – see you tomorrow! xx