Candlelight

01/12/2005

Now we have the first new moon of the year, with low pressure and a strong Westerly gale. Surprise, surprise we take quite a battering. It started from the South, but by the early hours it veered to the West and at 5.00 am with a great clap of thunder, our power was lost. I write this report in haste by candlelight, hoping that the trusty laptop has enough battery power. We are well set up with a kerosene fed Aga and hot water, plus many open fires, but many are not so lucky. Dotty will sort the roof problems, she is an excellent Alpinist, and as long as Lachie and I can get her onto the high rooves, she will manage the repairs. My maternal Grandfather, Sir Archibald Page had the honour, as chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board to commission the National Grid. He would be astonished to see, ninety years on, that despite many millions spent on grammar school engineer’s salaries, they have not managed to improve on his original design and they still have problems in what we now refer to, in post Global Warming as; Energetic Atmospheric Events. Hydro linesmen are a race apart, but their bosses should have their bottoms felt! They tell me that they do not know why I have no power, yet I can see from my office the circuit breaker hanging from the Trollaigh transformer, lets face it they have not given their excellent workforce the time or resources to come and stick it back in! Dotty assures me that “hotties” are in the Great Bed, and I anticipate that luxury with an early Ardbeg, as I have several new books to read. Hopefully tomorrow we can get back to the current century. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.