Memories of Power Outages in a Far Distant Past...
Note: The following was actually written last night on my phone, while sitting in the dark in our basement, during a power outage)
I'm sitting here in our basement, looking out at the last remnants of the fading sunset... following the power having gone out some ten minutes ago.
The power goes out quite a lot around these parts, part of the "cost of admission" for living in a fairly remote rural area.
Sitting here brings to mind my teenage years, spent in the south of Spain — during an era long before it became a massive tourist trap — where power outages were virtually a daily occurrence and we had no substantial expectations to the contrary.
My parents did complain mightily, even though it was their choice to move to a place where the cost of living was super low, but the infrastructure was largely lacking.
A nice illustration of "you get what you pay for," I suppose.
Power outages are interesting in the sense that they really bring us face-to-face with the reality of just how much electronic ambient noise we are constantly surrounded by.
The house is incredibly quiet right now; the only sound being the persistent wind outside, and Shadow the cat, purring.
A quick check of the power company twitter feed now reveals that "597 customers in our general area are without services. Crews are working to restore power"
I don't envy them that job: it's windy, it's dark, and it's pretty cold. I have gratitude for our comfortable basement.
We sure didn't have twitter during "the Spanish years;" back then, it was just a case of hoping for the best... and waiting. That's what one did, a lot, in Spain: Wait.
The small radio in my room was battery operated and I would tune in to the crackling sound of Radio Luxembourg on the AM dial and write in my endless journals by candlelight, generally not feeling nearly as put out by the situation as the adults.
Even now, it doesn't really feel like I am missing out on a great deal! Sure, we have Internet on our phones, but I am really not going to try to do actual work on this tiny device, just writing a few notes that I might later turn into a Hive post is arduous enough!
I don't have those journals from my teenage years anymore, and periodically I find myself regretting that... as the years pass, I remember less and less of what I actually felt and thought during those times.
But then again... maybe the past is best left where it belongs: in the past.
Postscript...
The power eventually came back on, a few minutes short of midnight. It's interesting how familiar we become with our routines and surroundings... we actually managed to turn off just about all the lights before going to bed, even though we were operating by lantern light.
And now, the usual routine resumes.
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your day!
How about YOU? Does the electricity go out frequently where you are? Does it frustrate you? Or do you pretty much take it in stride? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20220519 14:00 PDT
0578/1824
We still have some power outages here in south Spain… but less then the ones you described from your past.
You are right, crazy to what we are accustomed too. All the vibrations of electricity around us.
It is nice to switch of once in a while. I don’t mind and just enjoy those moments. In silence…
Enjoy your Friday 👋🏻
Ah, so you know the area well! The infrastructure in Andalucia was pretty "thin" towards the end of the Franco era (I was there 1972-80). I returned many years later; my parents lived as retired expats in La Linea and San Roque till my stepdad passed away in 2010... and things had certainly changed extensively.
I do enjoy the silence and the "sound" of all the electrical hums being OFF.
I do know the area @denmarkguy but not well. Just living here since 2015 as an expat. 😉 my 5th country of residence so far, this year we move again.
But I lived in cities, villages and the campo here in Spain. So saw a bit from all and heard stories and talked to people. I do notice things are still changing… just in the time I’m here.
My husband works in Gibraltar and goes through those 2 places everyday. We live now about 1 hour from it towards Marbella. We did live for a while in Sotogrande too.
Yes, me too… just switching off… no sounds. People should do that more often and listen to the nature.
Have a wonderful evening 👋🏻😁
I am actually working on a post about cooking without electricity. Although the context is mainly camping, these tools will get used when power goes out, too. It's not common, but it is frequent enough to plan on it happening with summer and winter storms. Trees fall on lines, idiots crash cars, and sometimes utility companies
screw something up inare busy maintaining the grid.We're about five miles outside town; the lines run through heavily wooded areas and there's a lot of wind here because we're basically at the tip of a peninsula. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.
Cooking without electricity is an interesting experience. At our old house we completely redid the kitchen — ourselves, by hand — and had everything ripped down to the bare walls and floor. Counting time to redo floors, walls and counters, we were cooking on a single propane burner and the BBQ grill for everything for about four weeks.
The cool thing is that we still make a lot of those "one pot meals" all these years later, and we never use the coffeemaker except when we have many people over... we always do "pourovers."
We live in the woods, and power outages happen once or twice nearly every year. Sometimes it's a summer storm that does it, and sometimes it's a winter storm. All it takes is a whopper of a wind, and maybe add some heavy snow to it, and that's the recipe for trees to fall on the power lines, resulting in a power outage. My husband has a generator to run if we need to make sure the fridge and the freezers keep cold. We have a propane cookstove in a shed, for such occasions. We mostly take it in stride, but city folks who are new to the area get all in a panic. The newbies across the road from us put in a whole-house generator that automatically comes on the instant the power goes off. It is quite noisy, and I actually resent the disturbance of the otherwise-quiet world we find when the power is out.
Yeah, we're kind of in the woods, too, although there is a fairly large community around us (about 800 homes). Yes, I am not fond of those whole-house generators... I walk outside and can hear the three or four in the neighborhood.
We're trying to save up for a battery/solar charging backup that'll keep our fridge and freezer running, it's silent and we could put it in the back of the truck when we go camping. Alas, high capacity units still run about $3K.
That would be a big investment, but you'd probably be pleased with it in the end.