Week 16, Day 6 (Lightning strikes twice!)

Guess what happened to us within an hour of my posting the last blog entry? Yeah.. bad weather deteriorated to an electrical storm, and the very first bolt came down within a kilometre of our farm.

That was enough to blow the breakers on the power pole out on the road (and something behind the Wobble's basket went 'BANG' and made him jump out of his skin). Look Mum, no power.

All major appliances have surge protectors on their lines, but even so we didn't know if the power surge had fried anything. Just to be on the safe side, we raced around unplugging everything from the mains, and were just about to unplug all the telephone lines when BANG, we got hit again, and this time we were Ground Zero.

In hindsight, we think the bolt hit the house (in the vicinity of the cable tv satellite dish), snaked down the line to the cable decoder, then zipped back on the shared phone line between the decoder and the computer's modem. My tech is amazed that while lightning fried my modem, it caused no other damage to the computer (most explode or are french fried).

The second blast was enough to momentarily light up every bulb in the house, and send the dogs into panic mode. Wobble was found tightly wound around a cat (on the couch!), and Pood was under the desk, piddling herself.

Literally.

We unplugged everything else (all phones) then I got on the phone to the power company (cell phone... I'm not completely stuuuupid) and waited forever to report the fault. Soooo reassuring to finally get someone, explain exactly what happened, then listen in amazement when he asked me if we still had electricity. Duh...! (A suggestion to power companies .. in amongst your every-ten-seconds reminder that the caller is on hold, how about a suggestion to clients ringing on a landline to report lightning damage that for their own safety to either wait until the storm has passed, or to use a cellular phone?)

Out here in the country no electricity means no power, no water, no toilet, and no electric fences. Despite many nagging phone calls (cleverly disguised as requests for updates), we were without any amenities for more than 24 hours. Thank goodness for the log fire, otherwise the house would have been uninhabitable, but some poor sod would have had to stay here to keep an eye on the animals and try to prevent wandering stock.

When service was finally restored, we were relieved to find the only casualties were one of the phone lines, the modem, the cable tv, and an electric fence unit. If that warning flash hadn't come first, we could have been in serious poo-poo. The only thing that saved the computer was that the power was disconnected, so the surge couldn't earth itself.

So all in all, an interesting weekend. Lots of card games by tilly lamp, soup on the log fire, and early nights. Not that that worked so well .. we woke at 3am starved & cold, and moved back out to the lounge where it felt a bit more cheery. Hot bacon & tomato sandwiches at 3am around a log fire is a weird but fun pick-me-up.

Heh heh.. I've found a way to 'get even' with Tadpole for her enthusiastic activities involving my innards. If I practice my pelvic floor exercises (as the books duly recommend) it bounces her up and down. I'm not sure if she hates it or loves it, but this is what happens:

Tadpole: belt kick slam wallop!
Mum: Lift, hold, release. Lift, hold, release. Lift release lift release (x 20)
Tadpole: (nothing .. for ages.. then BELT BELT KICK THUMP!)
Mum: Lift, release etc
Tadpole: (nothing.. tick tick tick tock.. BELT WALLOP KICK SLAM!)

and so on ;-) Like I said, she either loves it or hates it. I guess I won't find out which until she's 14 and in therapy ;-)