AND I missed my Ebay auction

It's been raining here. It's been raining so much that we made the national Guardian. (This happens very rarely when you're in the North of England). It's been raining so much that the river overflowed, the power station flooded, the electricity went off and actual rescue boats started actually operating in the actual city centre.

 Mr Coffee set off the night before last in his waterproof trousers to look at the river, which had gone slightly insane, and came back with blurry photos of an underwater skate park and some lights reflected in a road. In a road, that is, which was no longer a road, but a small waterway running past the fabric shop.

The power went off on Saturday night. Those frock dramas on the TV when they wander about by candlelight fail to convey quite how little light one candle gives off in a completely blackened house.

On Sunday morning we dug out the camping stove, assessed the 'what will go off first' situation, and came up with something based on prawns. Then began the race against time to get the floors clean of life-threatening Lego and small items with wheels which might be our undoing when darkness fell.

At 3.30pm, Littlest and I started ramming things into a paper bag rather than putting things in drawers - darkness was coming. We could see the sunset over the chimney pots.

Here is an extract from Littlest's Power Cut diary. (Actually this is all she wrote. It got too dark to see the paper.) And yes, that does say 'arguing' by candlelight. It's always best to start a physical scrap with your sister next to a row of naked flames.

Oblivion was upon us. We had to actually talk to one another, because due to the huge power outage there wasn't even a mobile signal. The newspapers reported students queuing up outside phoneboxes in town 'for the first time in their lives'. 

This morning at 6am the house sprang to life. Littlest was rather sad, until she found her school was closed for the day. Eldest was rather sad because her school wasn't closed for the day. I was rather relieved because the chest freezer had somehow held its contents in an icy stasis despite a complete lack of cooling electricity.

There are families and businesses who will take months to get back to normal; we've been very lucky. I had booked the day off to get on top of Christmas shopping, but with Littlest at home there is little chance of that. I might be forced to sew myself a new top instead.

Yes. We've been lucky indeed.