Powerless

I'd just got back from the gym and was enjoying the cool of the air-conditioning in the bedroom whilst the Missus was cooking some salmon in the kitchen for dinner, when there was an almighty bang and the lights went out. I thought it would just be matter of checking which fuse had gone in the box in the living-room for normality to be restored, but it wasn't. Indeed, trips to the various electrical risers on the three floors of the Hall in which our apartment is located also proved fruitless. I raised one or two of those little levers, but our place stubbornly remained in darkness.

It wasn't easy to contemplate the loss of the half-cooked salmon still in the oven (from where the big bang had emanated according to the cook) but bitter contemplation was not to be avoided.

However, all ended well when a call to our general handyman, Johnny, elicited the information that there was yet another electrical riser in the bowels of the building which we needed to check. Check we did, and there we found a big lever down over the number of our place. It was the work of a moment to lift it up and dash back up the stairs to find the lights on again.

Noi duly completed cooking the salmon and, let me tell you, it tasted extraordinarily good. I suppose that would have been the case if we'd not suffered our little catastrophe, but sometimes you need things to go wrong to remind you of just how deeply lucky you are.