LIGHTING UP

There have been a lot of mini-dramas this week. There was the incident with the red cabbage. There was the to-do with hamsters. And then yesterday, the power failed.

First thing Teener and I knew about the power failure was when we heard Bloggiana roaring

Hell's the matter with you, you boiling idiot.

I Piccalilli tumbled out of bed and downstairs into the kitchen thinking we had a genuine emergency and instead found the old girl, her gumboots thick with mud, standing by the kettle giving the old Morphy Richards what for.

Any idea what's happened to the lights? wailed Teener, as she groped her way into the kitchen and stumbled over the dustbin.

Hell should I know, came back the response.

And like lightning the three of us had an insight - an apercu as Great Uncle Cymbeline would call it - and realised that the reason the lights were not working and the reason the kettle was resolutely not boiling came down to one and the same and that was that the power had gone off. Or as Bloggiana put it gawn awf.

So I Piccalilli rang the electrician while Teener rummaged for head torches and Bloggiana went into the cupboard under the stairs to dig around for a bunsen burner so that she could make a cup of coffee because without one, she was in her own words 'worse than a fucking bear with a hell of a fucking bad head'.

Two hours later Fusio turned up. His van said Qualified Electrician. And his face said I am helpful and young and friendly. Fusio asked about trip switches and buzz bars and two phase crossovers. He raised not an eyebrow when Bloggiana swore at the bunsen burner - shitting effing useless effing thing, always hated science, bloody buggering gas, never effing hot enough etc etc - and instead got out his testers and his screw-drivers and an impressive box of fuses and began tinkering with the electricity boxes in our (wait for it) utility room because that he reckoned was where the root of our problem lay. Fusio was industry itself and did not break for a cup of tea. An hour after his arrival, he said Bingo and we all raised our head-torches in sync and Fusio said it's your main overhead line love and then he showed Bloggiana the main central fusebox whose butterfly clips he had eased off where the main central fuse had blown, apparently due to a fault further down the cable.

Two hours after that Polio turned up. He came in a big white landrover with ladders and a jumpsuit. He looked like a fireman and a prop forward and a Cary Grant lookalike rolled into one and when his enormous boot lowered itself out of the vehicle and onto Bloggiana's forecourt, I for one could detect a distinct sexual frisson in the air.

Problem with yer over'eds, luv? he asked.

The Old Girl came back quick as a flash.

Not sure if my single phase hasn't blown, she said.

Hmmm, he said. Show me yer trip switch, luv then.

Certainly will, Bloggiana replied and the two of them disappeared into the utility room and began chatting in a low-level friendly chat-tone.

For some reason I Piccalilli and Teener decided to eavesdrop. We pressed our ears to the door while Polio bantered with the Blog woman.

First we heard the turning of butterfly clips.

Then we heard Bloggiana say oh the electrician has already looked in there.

Then we heard Polio say he can't do that luv, it's dangerous.

To which Bloggiana said: Certainly looked like he knew what he was doing.

Only qualified electricians can open this box, came the rejoinder.

Pretty sure he was a qualified electrician, Bloggiana replied, keeping an admirable lid on herself.

'Fe wer a qualified electrician, e'd know it's dangerous. Wouldn't have opened it.

Bloggiana at that point must have blown a fuse of her own. Or something like that. We heard a switch flick. We heard some breath sharply intake. The lights came back on and the kettle began to hiss and someone somewhere muttered

Single phase back on full.