Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Last month’s storms left us without power for three days and without Internet for more than a fortnight. Even the mobile phone signal disappeared for two days. We were truly cut off and it was fortunate that we had no guests. We quickly found out that candles were not a good idea as Peonie, the black cat, nearly set fire to her tail. The big old oil lamp was very useful to light up the long, dark evenings and we huddled around the wood-burner for warmth. I have now bought three hurricane lamps, a good stock of lamp oil and spare wicks, and I hope we shall not have to use them. The photo above shows one tree that came down during Storm Eunice and did its best to bring down the broadband cable. The tree snagged the cable but did not break it. The tree that came down on the other side of our gate, during Storm Franklin on 21 February, finished the job (see photo below), and it took several teams of men many days to restore our line, first temporarily and then permanently. Running a B&B, or even one’s life, is simply not possible without Internet as too many systems won’t function without it nowadays. Oddly, these two trees were just outside my boundary. Not a single tree came down in our garden or woodland. Standing in the garden during the storms was a strange experience because the trees all around absorbed the wind’s energy and we didn’t even feel the slightest breeze, yet the roar was like that of a jet engine.
