What a Week!

Those who know me well but didn’t hear from me in the past week were getting worried – I don’t usually not respond to emails and phone calls. But it was all for good reason.

A week ago our youngest daughter got married and I had notified my team and all my regular clients that I’d be ‘out of action’ for a few days. I had family members here from interstate and country areas – not exactly easy to sit down and concentrate on work when you have guests in the house. By Tuesday evening we had our house back to ourselves but the following day I had to go interstate to attend an AGM for a client association. Prior to leaving that morning we had some power problems at home – I called the electricity company for them to come sort it out and I left for the airport.

The power problem was intermittent all day long – the company telling us it was an internal (appliance) problem whereas we were convinced it was an external problem – loud bangs or pops and flashes of light. Our daughter at home had rung them again in the afternoon but nothing happened. Things seemed to settle down Wednesday evening and we went to bed.

Early Thursday morning I was awakened by a loud bang and woke my husband and we rushed outside. He could see sparks in a tree against the house where the mains wire was passing through. A short time later another loud bang with a large flash of white light – quite a spectacular display. Graham rang the emergency services of the electricity company and we were told someone would come very soon. I rang a half hour later nervous and worried about the safety of our home. They arrived by 5.20am and 10 mins later the power was off and it remained off all day.

They had to lop part of the tree but the junction box appeared to be damaged and so we had to call an electrician to come and replace it – he arrived late morning and was here for two hours. And then it was another 5 hour wait before the electricty company team were back to reconnect our power. I had no computer, no phones (except our home line), no coffee :-(, no toast, nothing. I just had to sit and read for the day as there was little else I could do.

It was probably best I did rest – I’d been ill for 9 days by that time – initially with a bad cold (bad timing with the wedding) but then it turned into sinusitis and I had to get antibiotics. So the enforced rest wasn’t wasted – it just wasn’t on my terms!

Anyway, by Thursday night we were back on power and I spent Friday getting through emails and phone messages and trying to update everyone that I was around – just hadn’t been able to contact them for a couple of days.

Moral of the story – if you have a mains wire passing through a tree – keep the tree down very low. We knew it had grown but just didn’t realise how dangerous the situation had become – a windy night and some rain soon let us know! KMT

power problems, power outage, electricity, enforced rest