Blackout with the Gordons - go on, try it!

After nine months of having the power out usually every second day, I've decided we can officially call ourselves ‘power outage experts’! Apart from a few groans, there’s no surprise when the power goes out and no cries of 'the powers out, the power's out' followed by everyone fumbling to find matches to light candles and lanterns when it happens after dark (7pm – every night year round). We’re so used to it that we'll sometimes sit in the dark for 20 minutes or so continuing our conversations before someone gets up and lights a lantern. The kids are pro's at getting ready for bed using a torch (flashlight for US readers!) and we’re also getting quite good at bathing in the dark – murphys law – the power usually goes off when someones trying to bathe!


The battery life on our laptops aren’t so good, so we can’t do any work on the computer. It’s too dark to do housework, can’t watch a dvd, so shock, horror - the only thing we can do is spend time with each other, or go to bed. Candlelight card games, indoor spotlight, statues or hide and seek, sitting round talking and making up pathetic jokes have become our favourite things to do.

I thoroughly recommend it! Turn your power off one night a month even, call it a 'blackout with the Gordons' if you think you’ll get some complaints, and tell your hubby life will go on if he doesn’t get to see the news for a night. Have dinner by candlelight. Have some fun – boil your water on the stove for a hot drink, get the candles and cards out, or go hide then yell for everyone to come find you - and to make it REALLY fun, in the middle of the night get up and turn all the lights on in the house and quickly hop back into bed (we don’t have to do this bit as they often just magically turn on for us if we forgot to turn them all off when the power went out!) Then get up again and turn them all off and plug in your flat laptop or cellphone to charge, quickly send the email that needed to be sent that day and go back to sleep. Or, just stick with the candles and cards!

Last card tournament

(yes, I know, I really need to learn how to take decent photos in the dark!)