At about 1.00AM this morning, my immediate neighbourhood was hit by a power cut – the first I can recall for quite some time. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was working on the computer, I’d have probably not have realised until the morning came around and I saw clocks all flashing 00:00.
Suddenly it puts it all into perspective. My main telephone requires a power source to work, although the BT line was working, I wouldn’t want to not have a wired line as well. Hot water goes off, the street lights go off – although I could see other areas not on our grid that were working fine.
I don’t have a stock of candles – something to think about. And the clutter in my living room meant that I could probably have killed myself going for a torch in the blackness. That’s something between me and my vacuum cleaner though.
In this instance I didn’t have to worry about vast amounts of food in my freezer defrosting or anything, as the power was back on inside an hour. I tuned into local news radio and heard nothing at all, so it was probably far too localised to register on the scale. But at least I have battery radios, and my little wind-up radio is invaluable as well.
So what does this all mean? Well I don’t see myself investing in one of the battery powered back-ups to allow me to close down Windows properly in future that’s for sure. Take regular back-ups, and leave Autosave ticked on are my two main pieces of advice.