The power went off at home today for four hours. It was planned and it was all my fault - I live in a village where all the power and phone lines are overhead on tall wooden poles and last month I reported that one of the poles was leaning at a dangerous angle. So today, after two weeks advance warning, the power went off along our whole street so that the pole could be replaced. It wasn't a problem, I had planned ahead, my phone and laptop were fully charged, we had my camping stove to boil water for tea, I was all ready to survive that modern horror - no electricity. Pretty much on schedule the power went out and what hit me almost immediately was the silence. Sat in my office - why I don't know because the Internet was off and I had no phone - I could hear birds twittering, three snoring dogs and the old wind-up clock ticking two rooms away. But that was it. Nothing else. Silence. It was wonderful. Then the power came back again, my laptop started charging and the fan kicked in, the printer came on, the two external disks on my desk spun up, the TV went on in the lounge, the fish tank filter started pumping and the air stone started bubbling. It was deafening. I couldn't believe how I could live normally with so much background noise. Anyway a few hours later and I don't hear the noise any more. Maybe I'll turn the power off for a few hours next week when the family are all out and get that silence back.
b.t.w. I got a nice bonus from the electricity company - they gave me the telegraph pole, which is now sawn, chopped and giving off a wonderful heat in the lounge as it burns in the fireplace. Oh, and I discovered that I can be disconnected from the Internet for four hours without the world coming to an end.
