to absolutely shite myself when there's a power cut

[bigfam]

It's happened twice now, only for seconds each time. The kids were awake for the first one, second they're all asleep and I shit myself... Butterflies in my stomach the lot. I'm 25 ffs. Just want oh home now

We had bad flooding where I lived around 9 years ago and we were without power for 53 hours. Our flat was electric only and we survived on sandwiches and soup made in the fondue maker. It was secretly ace (we did lose the contents of the freezer but we're lucky to receive compensation).

My electric went off one new year - I'd just put hair dye on and had just switched the shower on to rinse it off. The lights went off - all the electrics in the house had blown. It was just my house; there were lights in neighbours' houses. I was shaking - never been any good in a crisis.
I was boiling pans of water on the gas cooker to try and rinse off the dye as best I could by candlelight and torch.
As it was a bank holiday I decided to go to bed (with wet hair) and waited until morning to call the electric company.
They said I should have called the previous night as they'd only had one call out!
Luckily they managed to fix it, no charge as apparently the fault was on 'their side'.

I love it. Dh comes over all Bear Grylls if he's in, I prefer it when its just me and dd - My house looks lovely cleaner by candlelight

Do you suffer from anxiety about anything else?

Have you got a torch on your phone op?

You really shouldn't come an visit me then OP. Here we are currently having power cuts each day (sometimes twice a day) for 3 hours at a time. In the day its a pain as some shops have to close, but at night its awful especially it your time slot is around dinner time.

Its all planned btw, and we have a schedule which they are supposed to stick to, but don't. so... ever prepared...

omg murphys where is that so we all can avoid
do you have reminders when to put on a wash etc?

is it anxiety then? I can honestly say if no one else was here and it was a long term thing that happened at night I'd probably be in tears.

Bear grylls lol "mmmm and here we have baked beans made by candlelight, this calls for the drinking of one's own urine to survive"

Yep got a really good torch on my phone, I'd still be terrified though.

Mousmous I am in South Africa. Its called loadshedding, when they need to reduce electricity load from the power grid as some stations are down for maintenance etc or due to the fact that they are negotiating a price increase

And we are coming into winter now

If we get caught with the washing in, it just stays in until we have power. Its wrecking our appliances as there is a power surge when it comes back on....

Ho hum. Not a first world country......

It's coming here Murphys, if the Greens get any more influence

RochnRollNerd I think you are a bit confused. CO2 ( carbon dioxide ) is a common gas, we breath it out.
CO ( carbon monoxide ) on the other hand can be fatal, it binds to haemoglobin instead of oxygen, but if the room is well ventilated there should be no problem
CO is produced by the incomplete burning of organic matter especially fossil fuels, that is if you cook or heat by natural gas, LPG, butane, oil, logs, coal, barbeque briquettes, camping stoves with propane etc and have a blocked chimney, flue or inadequate ventilation.

I thought the Montreal deaths were mostly from people using generators that were used in unvented areas rather than stoves. I am willing to be corrected if Im wrong on that

I have CO monitors near my boiler, in my kitchen and in my campervan.
If the room is ventilated properly, a camping stove should be no more dangerous than other fossil fuel.

I'm another one who quite enjoys them. Reminds me of being a small child in the 1970's when we had power cuts all the time. We used to think it was exciting.

My DS gets worried if we get a power cut so I try to make it fun and cosy for him and tell him it's no different to when we go camping.

Get some battery powered camping lanterns and keep them handy.

Bring the rechargeable garden lights indoors.

I quite like power cuts! We get them quite frequently, living as rurally as we do. If it's going to be a long one then we gather in the living room, where we have a log burner to keep up warm. There are torches and candles dotted around the place. We have oodles of blankets to keep up warm in bed if it's a winter power cut.

We also have camping stoves, kettle and gas lamp so can cook and see. If it's a night time power cut then it's absolutely pitch black as we have no street lighting anywhere near us.

We will sit and read or play board games with the kids in front of the fire. Nice and cosy :)

They recently put out warnings here in Australia about those little butane camping stoves and most states have banned the sale of them. There's a video on this site showing what can happen with them www.elgas.com.au/blog/1419-nsw-bans-portable-butane-stove-cookers-lunchbox-cookers.

Sorry you're right I meant carbon monoxide not carbon dioxide it was a typo. The point still still stands though that you shouldn't use a camping gas stove inside. I can't remember the exact Montreal details but generally I've seen a few people and articles etc advise against it...