Francis is away in Wales looking at a factory. I suppose it makes a change from sardine watching in Canada.
It's a cold, rainy night and I've been sneering at the government's attempts to keep us indoors with threats of severe weather. This turns out to be mistake number 1 - though I'm still not clear whether it's the government's error or mine.
The children demand hot water bottles. I hold one by its rubber top and pick up the kettle. The kettle, in a last-ditch flaccid nod in the direction of style - so far away these days that it would take a good Sat nav system to locate it - is made of metal. This is, or could have been, a second mistake.
The third mistake, depending on who plays a more prominent role in your life, is either too great a dependence on electricians, or too little on God.
I am just listening to a shortened version of Start the Week with Andrew Marr (abridged) which, this week, is talking about how electricity can affect the brain, with particular reference to a golfert struck three times by lightning, when a blue white arc of light shoots out of the kettle socket, performs a split second arabesque round me, the kettle, and the kitchen worktop, then subsides into nothing.
It is fleeting and attractive, like a strand of living tinsel.
"What was that?" asks Beth. As she speaks, there is an enormous clap of thunder.
"Mum," call Deborah and Leo, "All the lights just flickered."
For once, I'm with the government. Severe weather - definitely. It's just that I'm not used to finding it making its way inside. Perhaps it's just following the slugs and crawling in through the catflap for warmth and security.
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15 comments:
Hot water bottles?
Is that a very British thing to do on a cold rainy day? Sounds lovely and so very eco-friendly ... my kids usually request electric heating pads and tons of TV watching when they're out of sorts.
Not very eco-friendly I'm afraid.
I too experienced the clap of thunder that shook the house - and wondered what I could have been thinking of at the times to provoke such celestial wrath?
I was watching "The Quantam Future" at the time I think - so the thunder-clap could simply have been a rebuke...
Did you see that programme btw? I don't think I have ever been quite so thrilled or fascinated by anything in my life! Truly, reality as we know it, turned upside down and on its head.
Tell Francis not to bother with factories in Wales (do they still have factories in Wales?). The future is all in 'digital construction units'. They will be about the size of microwaves, and will make kettles, electricians, plumbers, carpenters et al, things of the past. And soon we shall all have one in our kitchens.....
Oh, and I forgot to mention this (also from the Quantam programme)....
With 'Teleporting' (already a reality in some basement in Vienna)..... "Beam me up Scottie" will be a realizable phenomenon. Only trouble is - with the way things stand with it at present, there is no guarantee we will end up as the same people we were,when we reach the other end of the beam of light...
Alice in Wonderland stuff? No, just the expected development of science, apparently. So all Francis needs to do is re-train as a nanotech expert, and his future (and along with it that of the planet and the human race) will be assured.
(I hope you saw this programme too. Otherwise you will be thinking I have quite lost-it at last!)
POSTSCRIPT (shock horror!):
All my former fine words fall down, on the simple (but unforgiveable) mis-spelling of one crucial little word:
It should have been QuantUm , not QuantAm....
See how the future of the planet could collapse, for want of a single letter of the alphabet!
(I also had to post this amendment on Lady Macleod's page - where I had likewise waxed eloquent, and in error.)
Molly gras: It is incredibly British and thus an almost inconceivably out of character thing for me to do. Electrical heating pads sound a great deal more enjoyable and you do have to boil the kettle to fill the hot water bottles so not sure how green they are, either. Really we should all put on another sweater and freeze it out. That's the English way, or was.
IB: What I love about you (amongst other things) is the thought that goes into your comments. I wish there were a commenter award because you'd head the list. They are gorgeous, even if you can't get me a Telegraph column.
If you heard the same clap of thunder, incidentally, it seems to be at least plausible that we must live reasonably close to each other, though I bet you didn't get your very own lightning strike.
PS: Had you ever thought of registering QuantAm as a futuristic teleporting service - like PanAm only better.
QuantAm; Get your personal Teleporting system here - now there's a thought! As always, you are several steps ahead of me on the inventiveness front.
Anything in it for Francis, do you think?
PS I think we Do live fairly close to one another as a matter of fact. Both in Surrey, anyway?
Just goes to show, om, that you should do as the government and authorities tell you; 'be careful' when the roads are icy and'wrap up' warmly tomorrow as the wind chill is below zero.
An instruction for every eventuality....
I need a hot water bottle. It's very cold where I live. I think I'll put it on my Christmas list.
Crystal xx
Blimey, girl. You don't do things by halves, do you?
AB
Just wanted to drop in and say, am loving your blog, v.funny.
We also have slugs entering our house, but from the underneath unfortunately. Although maybe sometimes they get to the cat flap?
Hope you don't mind but am putting in on new like list on my blog.
Bev
Spouse was very taken with the Americans usage of something they call Hot Buns or Hot Cheeks, or something like that.In freezing weather you sit on them whilst watching the American football (in the stadium, not from your sofa) - and your buttocks are kept toasty warm for the entire (hours long) game.
Bad luck with the indoor-lightning. Avoid the telephone, shower, golf club and church steeple.
Mya x
Yes...we discovered our bedroom window leaks in severe weather...we are thrilled to find that it will cost a small fortune to replace! Don't spose free-cycle has any spare double glazing? No, on second thought I think I can guess the answer!
a continuing note regarding Mya's comment:
We Americans absolutely insist on having toasty tushes -- very large, rotund, hanging-over-the-edge, smoking hot through last season's corduroy asses.
We don't kid around when it comes to keeping those "buns" warm!
Guy Fawkes night was some time ago, wasn't it? Are you breaking out the fireworks early for New Year?
Hope nobody was harmed in the making of this blog posting.
IB: We'll speak soon, no doubt.
Debio: But they don't have any answers for arcs of sparks (blimey, it rhymes).
CJ: I'll be wishing that you get it. They do ones with these gorgeous knitted covers. My God, at this rate I'll sound domesticated, and then where will we be?
aphra benn: Nor quarters, either. I'd say I'm well up there in fractional terms, anyway.
tattyhouseh: Am delighted to see you and gratified to be linked. Thank you.
Mya: Hot buns? love it. Do you think there's a cycling version?
DJ: Seriously, sign up and say what you want and include measurements. Despite my slightly flippant attitude, Freecycle can be a bit like whatever that religion is where you chant for things you need - except that you shortcut any deity by using the internet instead. If get time, will come over to you and reiterate this. Am sorry to hear about horridness of necessary but expensive repairs.
Molly Gras: Is there actually a product called Toasty Tush and, if not, could you invent one. Marvellous name.
M@L: It really happened.Honestly. It was scary. We were all fine, though and fuses were OK. Still utterly baffled, though.
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