Brought home to me

[Tengu]

Slept all afternoon and woke when it was dark.

But the Electricity had run out.

So I had to light a candle in order to see to renew it...

Found candle and matches.

Ever try to light a match in the pitch black?

Took me 5 matches.

I am no good at firecraft

 

[Robson Valley]

HA! Wish I was a fly on the wall for that one. Did you have a "light station" of candles and matches laid out?

My village (McBride, BC) is subject to numerous total power failures, day and night, all year long.
Honestly, it's the darkest dark of black darkness imaginable.
I think it only seems worse by being accustomed to the electric lights of the evenings.

I have a LED "touch light" which sits by the bathroom sink. Big base, hard to tip over.
My logic is that I can follow walls in the dark and get to the bathroom without tripping over anything.
All I have to do is find it and bumble into touching the top of it = 3 levels of brightness.
Nothing else is a problem after that.

 

[Nice65]

You'll be needing a torch with a glow marker on it Tengu.

 

[daveO]

Slept all afternoon and woke when it was dark.

But the Electricity had run out.

So I had to light a candle in order to see to renew it...

Found candle and matches.

Ever try to light a match in the pitch black?

Took me 5 matches.

I am no good at firecraft

Ode to a damp match by Tengu 2018

 

[shaggystu]

Ode to a damp match by Tengu 2018

It's certainly the most poetic post for some time, I enjoyed it. I'd suggest a poetry thread but I imagine that it'd rapidly become truly awful, I'd give it 'til the weekend before we saw the first attempt to rhyme Mears with Deers.

As for power cuts/running out of electric: I live with relatively frequent power cuts here, I think maybe not so bad as Robson Valley has it but much more often than I've known anywhere else that I've lived in the UK. I've got a torch in my pocket, always. It works well for me.

 

[daveO]

There was a young man called Mears
Whose bank balance was in arrears
A bloke made him an offer
To film him stroking his chopper
And after that he was quids in for years

 

[Broch]

We used to have regular power cuts, 3 or 4 every winter, some lasting a couple of days. Not really so bad with log burners, oil lamps and gas burners as backup but our water is from a borehole with a pump. So I went and bought myself a nice 2Kw diesel generator. Guess what, we've not had a power cut since and that was ten years ago!!!

One hardly used generator for sale!

 

[Insel Affen]

Were you not able to see in the blue light (from some choice words)?

I always now keep as couple of cylumes and torches in the same drawer of the kitchen, much to the annoyance of my beloved.

 

[bearbait]

I have a number of torches in fixed places around the house, upstairs and downstairs...in case. I sometimes use them rather than the regular lights in the middle of the night if I have to get up as it seems easier on the eyes, and I get back to sleep quicker.

 

[wingstoo]

I was able to fit an emergency light next to the consumer unit (Fuse board) so when/if the power goes off I get a couple of hours of light to sort out the circuit that has gone. Also put one outside of the garden shed as there is a freezer in there, if the power fails to the shed the light comes on letting us know.

Not easy with rented and on pre-payment, but otherwise a great addition

 

[Tengu]

Um, its not a poem...

Those matches are cheap ones, plus the damp in winter does not help, -yet ordinarily I dont have ones that fizzle out.

Just my bad luck.​

 

[daveO]

Um, its not a poem...

Those matches are cheap ones, plus the damp in winter does not help, -yet ordinarily I dont have ones that fizzle out.

Just my bad luck.​

You are a poet
But you just didn't know it
This is a haiku

 

[shaggystu]

You are a poet
But you just didn't know it
This is a haiku

Help me! I am trapped
In a haiku factory
Save me before they

Tells you everything you could ever need to know about poetry.

 

[Nice65]

I was able to fit an emergency light next to the consumer unit (Fuse board) so when/if the power goes off I get a couple of hours of light to sort out the circuit that has gone. Also put one outside of the garden shed as there is a freezer in there, if the power fails to the shed the light comes on letting us know.

Not easy with rented and on pre-payment, but otherwise a great addition

Motion operated LED lights are cheap. We have one in the porch to give us enough light to get in if we come in late. One fixed inside the cupboard of the fuse box would only get activated when the cupboard door was moved.

Still, like Bearbait, I have torches about, most with either a tritium marker or a glow spot on them. Much kinder to the eyes at night when off for a pee or to let an ancient Jack Russell out for the same.

 

[santaman2000]

I keep a flashlight near the bed (in the top drawer of the bedside table) I need to be more diligent checking the battery condition though.

 

[Janne]

Sod the matches, Tengu, get a lighter instead.