Power Cut

Earlier this evening, the electricity supply for some reason cut out. I was at the time surfing the web on a laptop so the instant the power went off, the network connection disappeared. Having fumbled around the house for matches for a while, I finally managed to light a candle which for once wasn't being used for ambience. It suddenly occurred to me that without electricity it would be essentially impossible to survive in my flat. Being relatively new, my home depends exclusively on electricity for energy. From heating to cooking, everything in the house is plugged into the wall in some way. I had been planning to heat up some leftovers in the microwave. But now I couldn't use a microwave. Or a toaster. Or the oven. In fact, I couldn't eat any raw food at all - it was lucky that there were some leftovers, however cold. Sitting on the couch, swaddled in a duvet against the dwindling warmth, it occurred to me that by the next morning any remaining hot water in the tank would have cooled and anything in the freezer would have started to defrost. My only consolation was in reading a book by the flickering light of a couple of candles. No wonder Russia weilded so much power over the Ukraine when it came to energy supplies. There has been so much publicity over the rising cost of energy in general, but we at least still have access to energy, however expensive it may be. And then the lights came on again.