Dinner was OK last night, given that it had been entirely unplanned entertaining. Mr L’s Butter Chicken was delicious as usual. I made a Balti Prawn dish that I hadn’t tried before and was quite pleased with it. I also made Bombay Potatoes. With the Aloo Saag and naan and poppadums, I think we dined rather well…
I cast on a new Clapotis yesterday so that I would have something easy to knit while I chatted. A good job, as it happens, because SpinningGill and I found ourselves first knitting in the dark, and then by candlelight.
Gill’s power had gone off at 10:30pm Friday and was still off when she came round to see if we had power and could fill her Thermos flasks. That would be about 2:30pm, I think. The power did of course return while she was away from home, so she didn’t need the gas stove that we had supplied her with. Dinner plans having been made, they were left in place and G&A arrived in a howling gale at 6pm. We had our dinner, went through to the sitting room and were sat chatting (noticing along the way that the wind had dropped somewhat) when suddenly we were plunged into darkness – mid-stitch, as it were. No warning whatsoever, the lights had not been dipping at all. I took Nell out in the garden for a while and it looked as though the whole island had suffered a power cut. Stronsay still had lights and I could see them across the water. Apart from that, there was the emergency lighting supply at the school, the milky way, and Start Light.
Power returned just before our visitors left to go home. I had supplied candles and matches in case their lights at home had not returned.
So, the Clapotis proved to be just the job – light coloured yarn in a simple pattern on large needles. It may come in handy again as the forecast for Tuesday looks to be very “interesting” – with heavy snow down to sea level and high winds expected. Plenty of time for that forecast to moderate yet though so we shall have to wait and see.
The power supply just dipped as I wrote this post and the UPS cut in. Clearly things are not yet quite right. We still have no mobile telephone service either.
We recorded a top wind speed of 68.0 mph yesterday, so well below the worst that we get and it is very early in the winter yet. The garden is beginning to fill up with water for the winter though and we had a record (for our weather station) rainfall rate this week
Highest Rain Rate
94.4 mm/hr
at 21:40 on 24 October 2008
Hail showers are expected again this afternoon. It seems likely that the dogs won’t get the walk that I promised them. I am not cooking today either – last night’s dinner held more than enough calories to keep us going for a while. We had cereal this morning and I think that I shall bake some more soda bread this afternoon for a bread and cheese supper. That leaves me with plenty of knitting time on my hands.
Now, where did I put that Clapotis last night?