Power outage again

Yesterday evening I was happily chatting with jan when it happened again....booom darkness and silence in the appartment. Another power outage.

Since it happened at the end of November as well, my reflexes were a bit better. Rather than starting to bump into things, I immediately opened the curtains to get some moonlight in. That was actually very funny: the entire street was once more in utter darkness but from the windows of the opposite houses I occasionally saw the round moving light of a flashlight. I could just picture in all those houses people touching furniture, moving slowly while trying to find quickly that lighter of that flashlight etc and then helping others :-). My neighbours on the floor below and 2 floors below were also screaming to each other "is it out over there tooo???".

I quickly put on some candles around the house and managed to sms Jan with the last battery I had on my mobile to ask him for a wake-up call...you never know how long the power is out and what your alarm clock will do when it comes back up. He then spooked me by phoning me on my fixed phone...I had never realised that the telephone gets its own electricity over the telephone line itself and that it was still functioning. Anyway, it was nice having someone to call me in the darkness and to tell me what time it was.

After cleaning up my table in candlelight, and brushing my teeth in bathroom candlelight (weird experience) , I went to bed since there really was nothing else I could do in the dark...but at that time one hour after it went out, it went back up. The happy loud scream down below was an extra confirmation, in case I didn't see my alarm clock flashing. Oh well, I was ready to go to bed, so for once I've been in bed really early. I admit it, I did do some reading in bed still, but this morning I was very much rested. Maybe I should have a power outage more frequently.
I should not say that too loud as power outages seem to become a plaque in the area around Ghent. Over a year ago there were about 10 of them in different parts of Ghent in 2 weeks time... that many that their came questions about it in the parliament. But so they claimed it was all coincidence (line broken, power cabine on fire, car crash near a line, etc...). Still, there are far too many power outages in Ghent, ...but I so far only had 2.

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