There are a few downsides to living in the countryside apart from not having any more than 1mb broadband. One of the biggest issues that comes with winter is power cuts. Couple this with net cuts which seem to increase in number during the colder months and you have one odd way to run a web business.
This year hasn’t been so bad compared to others. I have my laptop and in ‘down times’ I just hope they don’t last more than my battery – luckily they rarely do. Today was our first one for a while with regards to the electricity going and caught me a bit off the hop as I made the fatal mistake of not having a battery light upstairs or even a candle. On the upside Simon appears to be able to go downstairs in the dark without falling over – not a feat I would ever be successful at.
There is something about a village in total darkness. Where we live there are lots of listed buildings and old cottages, some with traditional thatched roofs – think chocolate box village with a dash of victorian and new build attempts at blending. While Simon was on the hunt for battery light downstairs while I was left in the total darkness and turned to look out of the window. The sky was a nice deep mix of dark black and blues. It really made me think what I had missed by being stuck on the net rather than bothering to see the world outside that night.
I don’t know what it is about black outs – maybe it’s the getting back to basics or candle light that inevitably is your option – power cuts always make me reflect. There is something almost magical about them that makes you pause. I used to work in candle light a lot when I was a student, I seem to have a long time ago stopped doing that and opted for the lamp method. Maybe it’s those times that I remember when having to use candle light. I think it’s more than that though and possibly something basic in us that returns as the modern world is stripped.
I have grown up in the countryside and to me power loss is sort of part of the deal. So long as it’s not so long your food goes off it’s not that hard to deal with a lack of electricity and it tends to bring people together in an odd way. The power cuts I remember from being a child were not what they are now. I remember days whereas now you get the odd hour and often only a few minutes. Todays was about 15 minutes tops. Even if the net fails I never go more than 1/2 a day lately – this I am really grateful for.
Forced to have a pause in your life is a good thing and maybe we should all force ourselves to have it now and then. It’s easy to get swallowed up in the modern world and take for granted everything we have. A new product comes out we general find fault with it rather than marveling, if we marvel it’s only for a few days then it raises the bar to set against everything and we invariably find fault with said new thing and moan why can’t it be better. It is natural to do this but it’s also a shame. We are almost desensitised to the modern world so much we expect and demand more without realising what we do have. In times away it makes us realise what we do have – well it does me.
