Be Prepared
There has been the odd mention of problems with our national electricity supply.
It’s funny how no mention was ever made in past years with warnings of blackouts in coming months? Usually we only had blackouts during strikes or after a batch of bad weather. Could it coincidentally be anything to do with an over reliance on the wind for their bird munchers?
Anyhows the first mention was a few weeks back where they talked about a shortage of power for the next five years. The problem at the time was that a couple of generating plants were down for maintenance. However hey have just announced that Huntstown is back on stream. This is exciting news as I didn’t even know there was a Hunstown plant. Apparently it’s a gas powered station so that will shortly be shutting down again in case it causes the planet’s entire climate to collapse.
Now there is a plan to reassure us.
I am so reassured.
In the case of a problem with power, the data farms will be the first to go. I’m sure this is brilliant news for all the firms that have just invested in their spanking new farms?
Then the next to go will be cement factories. This would indeed be reassuring if every town and village had its own cement factory but off the top of my head I can’t think of any. Maybe the lack of them pushes them down the priority list. Other industries too will be blacked out but they don’t go into any further specifics.
Last of all to be blacked out will be healthcare settings and private homes. But, we are told, it will never come to that. Private home owners can rest assured that there will be no power cuts.
Now that they have made such a clear and specific statement, I am worried.
I have all the candles in place. Torches are placed at strategic points. The gas fire is primed an ready to go. My only problem is brewing my mug of tea. I thought of getting a generator but I would have to shell out way in excess of €500 to get one powerful enough to boil a kettle. I don’t value my tea that much. I’ll have to rely on gas.
About forty five years ago we bought the full camping equipment – chalet tent, table and chairs, inflatable mattresses and a cooking stove with a cylinder of gas. Over the years for various reasons we got rid of the tent and the mattresses. Many years later a friend of Daughter sat on the camping table and flattened it [she was a BIG girl]. The chairs survived for some more years before ending in a skip. The only thing that remained was the stove and gas cylinder.
That stove travelled the country on our various holidays. It was ideal for brewing a quick snack at the side of the road. In later years it was dragged out during regular power cuts. It was used so often I even had to refill the gas cylinder a few years ago.
Yesterday we had a power cut. Maybe they were practising for the cuts we aren’t going to have? I dragged out the camping cooker and connected it up. The stink of gas was disgusting. Luckily the power came back in time to prevent a massive explosion and I decided to bin the stove. It has had a long and honourable life and it’s time to replace it.
It’s always best to be fully prepared for the things that will never happen?
My contingency is a paraffin Primus stove I’ve had for around 50 years, did good service in bygone camping days. Properly hot hob-flame, works on almost anything inflammable you can get hold of, runs for hours so can heat the house as well. OK, they can be temperamental to light and prone to spontaneous explosion but hey, life’s full of risk anyway.
Wow! I had forgotten… I have an old Primus stove that hasn’t been used since I moved here. I have the paraffin but would need some meths to prime it, I must dig it out if I can remember where I last saw it.
It was/is quite a ritual getting a Primus going.
Filling with paraffin, pumping it up, fiddling about with the little pricker, filling the pre-heat reservoir with meths.
Then ignition, open the paraffin tap and hopefully a ring of beautiful blue flame.
If not, repeat.
The other thing we had was an Aladdin brand paraffin table lamp. Brilliant. But do not touch the mantle.
I remember the process well. Our table lamp is a good old fashioned one with a wick and glass chimney. We used to have an Aladdin stove but that sadly has passed to the great Scrap Pile in the Sky.
I recommend this little yoke https://www.amazon.co.uk/SilverFire-Scout-Backpack-Gasifier-Stove/dp/B00I8VBV2O/ref=sr_1_1?crid=K1WUQTOJVKWA&dchild=1&keywords=silverfire+scout&qid=1635190772&sprefix=silverfire+%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-1
I can see that working well in the middle of the kitchen floor? Probably burn the house down.
Travel trailer* parked on the lot behind the house, propane bottles full, generator good to go.
*(This allows us to feel somewhat affluent as we can refer to the summer home and the winter home.)
I will be pissed off to the extreme if we lose power for any appreciable time, as we are nearly surrounded by those damnable wind farms.
A bit expensive, cheating but ingenious. During a power cut, just decamp to the camp as it were?
It is only up here at the for the winter months. Late spring to early fall it sits on a small plot we have use of about 60 miles east of home in the Blue Mountain Range.
So how are the pious and the green peoples going to charge their oh so painfully right on electric cars if the power goes out
Walk? Leastwise they seem to assume we all are fit enough to walk or are on flat enough ground to cycle. I don’t think their imagination stretches to little problems like that.
Anyone who voted green should be forced to turn their own power off and walk everywhere, how many do you think will stick to their principles once it has a substantial impact on their lives?