Light relief

Storm Eunice left us without electricity for two days and a night. Not such a disaster as it is for many as we have a log fire, a gas stove and oil lamps as well as candles, matches and torches. Still, it was nice when the lights came on again at 8pm just as we sat down to supper.

As it happens, I've been writing a short memoir of my parents' ten years living in the Welsh borderland. They left wartime London to hole up in a small house in the hills, half an hour's walk from the nearest village. The place had no electricity or any other form of power, no water,  no neighbours and no sunlight during the winter. They had no car and nor did anyone else: shanks', or actual, ponies were the way most people got around.

I spent my infancy there so I reckon that the smell of smoke and paraffin oil must be  embedded in my psyche. At the very least it means that I'm never without matches, candles and torches - oh, and hot water bottles - and I can cook a meal in the dark.