Just keeps on giving

Although it doesn't in any way compare with last night, this week has managed to come up with another winner - a night that starts out OK, and ends up not quite so OK. It all started with a tripped fuse at about 6:30 tonight. I was sitting downstairs, happily playing with my laptop when I heard Flatmate C cursing upstairs. The loss of the radio had passed me by. I checked and re-set all the fuses, but still no joy. Not a lot I could do though, because I was off to see The Proposal - good movie, by the way, and don't let anyone, least of all a hoity-toity proto-feminist critic tell you different. Left instructions for C on how to approach the problem, she having never had Flatmate L's and my history of run-ins with things utilities related. That was my first mistake. Or rather my second, as it turns out.

So I trotted off to the movie, enjoyed myself reasonably well once I stopped either seething about the seating arrangements (dinner took longer than expected, so in spite of having our tickets 45 minutes in advance, we were in the very front row, with rowdy teenagers behind us), or getting a bit weepy over the emotional grandmother scenes, I enjoyed myself quite a lot. Rather unseemly, perhaps, but there you have it. Light hearted rom-com was just what the doctor ordered. Then I arrived home to find C sitting virtually in the dark, strumming her guitar, having been unable to get any help from the power company. Perhaps it would have helped if she'd been calling the right power company. It also would have helped if she was about a foot taller, and could see if the meters were ticking over or not. As it happens, though, none of the above happened. So, a couple of phone calls later, L having climbed on a chair to check the meters, and we were waiting for the lovely men from the energy company to come and fix our problems.

It was fairly good fun, for a while. C played her guitar, L and I sang along. All we needed were some marshmallows to roast over either our candles, or the gas jets in the kitchen. Eventually, L drifted off to sleep on the floor, it now being well after midnight, and C and I lit more candles to be able to read. In the spirit of the Blitz, true London style, we soldiered on in the face of adversity, refusing to be daunted. And trying desperately not to fall asleep. When the electricians eventually arrived, however, we were in for another story. The reality check of being 3 women in the face to 2 tradesmen, automatically reduced to "Girlie" status, and doomed to be patronised.

Which we duly were, when he took one look in the fuse box and said, "Oh God." The mains switch was in the "Off" position. So we got talked through Fuse Boxes 101, the do's and don't's, and why it was off. He flicked the switch and, miracle of miracles, everything came back on. We were back in the twenty first century while he made various checks to ensure that there was nothing seriously wrong, talking down to us the whole while. Or at least he was, until everything went unexpectedly black again and we were vindicated. It seems there is a fault with our wiring. The fact that I am able to be on the internet should tell you that we have some power again. Just not on the upstairs lighting is all. And somewhere in Walthamstowe, East London, around about now there's a person being patronised by a rather rotund electrician and his aging apprentice for whatever problem they've had to cause an electrical fire. I hope they too are vindicated.