I have gotten into a bit of a morning routine. My phone alarm goes off about 7am and then the radio clicks on a few minutes later and then I lie in bed for an undetermined amount of time (read usually too long!) before getting up and starting the day. However this morning the radio didn’t click on.
I lay there for a few minutes before deciding that I would treat myself to half an hour in bed watching tv and then get up. I went to flick on my TV and it wouldn’t turn on. I reached for my bedside lamp, went to turn that on and nothing – I think it may have been at this point I muttered my first expletive of the day!
I may have lay in bed for a few minutes wishing the whole situation away before realising I had no option but to get up and deal with it. The joys of being a modern independent woman!
I went downstairs, electricity off throughout the house.
I text my neighbour… he still had electricity.
I went to my fuse box (yes take a moment to praise me for knowing where the fuse box is!) but none of the switches were flicked down. Yep, I had you convinced I knew what I was doing for until about there I recon!
I flicked the biggest switch (i do know the name of that but I can’t remember it) ooo breaker (I remembered it!) and my telephone played a little tune and then died again as the switch came back down. I saw another switch that was down, but it wasn’t one of the room switches, but as this point I was thinking ‘what the hell’ so pushed that up. I then pushed back up the breaker switch. No song from my phone. So I unswitched the switch I had switched and decided I had had enough of being an independent lady; so I called my Dad.
NB as a side note I think I should tell you that my circuit board is situated above my front door, at the bottom of my stairs. To push the switches up I had to flick said switch while launching myself off the third step onto the bottom step. I tried this a few times before admitting defeat and going to get a ladder!
Once I had told Dad the whole story he admitted that he couldn’t think of anything to do that I hadn’t done. So he told me to get ready for work and he would come up that evening.
NB I should also mention that it was as this point I realised my entire house is at the mercy of electricity. I had a gas boiler, but it is controlled by an electric switch. I wasn’t allowed to put a gas hob in my kitchen, due to not having an outside door, and so I have an electric cooker and of course an electric kettle. I don’t have an electric shower – woo hoo – but the water is heated by the boiler – no woo hoo! I was facing going to work smelly or suffering a cold shower.
It was at this point my lovely neighbour offered to come round and have a look for me, and bring me a coffee. (I know took him long enough, right!) As I was waiting for him to come and bring me my coffee (yes, I had decided I was also going to try and blag shower off him) I decided I would go and cuddle Poppy to cheer myself up.
I unlocked the conservatory door and stopped dead.
The bottom section of her cage was open and she was no where to be seen.
NB another side note. Currently my conservatory is doubling as the dumping ground for anything I still need for the DIY etc. It is full to burst with bits of wood, old pallets, bags of dust cloths etc. You can’t see the floor, and my rabbit was hidden somewhere in this mess.
NB NB. I know I had locked the cage door properly as this wasn’t the only time I have noticed the door open. The first time I thought I had just neglected to shut the cage properly and blamed myself. But since that incident I have been so thorough with double checking. Anywho, back to the story…
I don’t know why this was my first thought process, but I went to check the double doors between my conservatory and the outside world were locked. They were shut but I wanted to check they were locked, I was ruling out her escaping from them, despite them being closed. I was clearly somehow imagining she had opened them, left, and then closed them behind her! Anyway, turn back from the locked doors I noticed her little bum hidden behind my freezer. (Yes, there is currently a freezer in my conservatory. It’s my over flow freezer and one day it will live in the loft, just as soon as said loft isn’t filled with my Dads tools.) She scarped when I went to reach for her, but luckily so only scarpered into a better place to be caught.
I picked her up, gave her a MASSIVE hug and kiss and then put her back into her cage; ensuring I put wood in front of the door so it couldn’t swing open again.
I then went to look at the damage.
Turns out my boasting to someone about my “good little rabbit who doesn’t chew cables” has now developed a cable chewing habit. She had completely frayed the wire. I unplugged the freezer, ran back and launched myself off the third step to try my break and whooped out loud when I had electricity again (I may also have turned a lot of things on to check!)
At this point my neighbour arrived with my coffee and I filled him in on my discovery.
Suffice to say Poppy is now padlocked into her cage and I am considering ways to heat water in my house without electricity!
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