We’ve been having some wind problems…
At about 5pm today My VNC connection to home went down, which usually signifies a power outage in Hartley Wintney. This happens often – I ought really buy a UPS and line conditioner because I suffer so many brownouts – so to minimise risk of damage to my systems at home they are all configured to go down and stay down in the event of power loss.
What I didn’t expect was that it would go on for so long.
I arrived home around 7:30pm and found that in the high winds I had lost 2 or 3 tiles off my roof; yet another of them was teetering on the guttering and threatening to fall on my head. I retreived a 10′ plank from the side of the house, easing the coving down from the roof so that I can find a perfect replacement for the others.
Although my house and everything west of it had power, my elderly neighbour Eileen and everything east of me, including the entire village High Street, was without.
I grabbed a bite to eat and went to visit Eileen for a chat, she was in fine spirits, surrounded by tea-lights and other candles, and many many other people dropping in on her to check she was OK. I left at about 9:40pm and in the darkness thought what the hell, I’ve never really seen the village in darkness, let’s go to the pub.
So I did, and I took my camera.
Bedecked with candles and gaslights, the Waggon and Horses was open to the public and surprisingly packed; when there’s nothing to do people want a social nucleus, and the pub is the seat of the village’s conscience.
It’s amazing how different a place looks in total darkness, and how much more welcoming a light seems in that context.
The public bar was curiously empty, curious because it’s usually packed-out with regulars and often contains twice as many people as the saloon bar; tonight the proportions were reversed, with only the hardcore regulars in the Public Bar.
The Saloon Bar was much more gossipy; the conversation swung round to the village “Calendar Girls” calendar for the second time this evening, how Mariel (a local martial-arts expert) had made it into Your Super Soaraway Sun:
The Sun
THINGS have never been so lively in the sleepy Hampshire village of HARTLEY WINTNEY since a bikini-clad local girl struck this Ursula Andress pose to raise money for a children’s playground.
…but apparently she was elsewhere down The Lamb this evening.
The bars were silent except for the chatter of people; this only struck home when at 10:35 the power suddenly returned and the jukebox blarted into “stop pulling my hair” and the magic simply evaporated.
If you get the chance to visit somewhere in a blackout, do so; it’s an interesting perspective.
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