Right After This

Last night, the power went out. Sometimes this happens if it is really hot, and all of the air conditioners in Queensland have used up all the power, or something. Maybe it happened because it's really cold, and all of the heaters are using up all the power in Queensland.

Either way, I had a forkful of dinner in my gob when it went all dark and Charles Wooley disappeared into the night.

We froze and waited for it to come back on.

It didn't. For two hours.

So a couple of minutes in, we unfroze and considered hunting round for torches. Beardie's first thought was to open the fridge to get some light. Then he realised the flaw in this plan. My first thought was to shovel the rest of my dinner into my mouth, and this I did. Dinner is so much more exciting when each forkful is a mystery.

Things that you can do in the dark:

• play guitar, and then realise that it's been months since you've played, that your fingernails are too long, and that you suck
• read a book by torchlight
• talk about what the neighbours are doing. "Ooh, look, they're running around with torches too!"
• hold your torch under your chin so that you've got that whole spooky look going
• other stuff (coughCOUGHcough)
• walk up and down the street, seeing how far the blackout goes
• talk about how there's nothing to do when there's a blackout
• try and do various things that are impossible, because there's a blackout
  

And so on.

The main pro being that I finished my book, and the main con being, well, almost everything else.

But tonight all is well, and I am rapidly consuming the lovely, lovely electricity.

Sigh. At the moment, a blackout's the best I've got.