Before you say anything, yes it was me on Spotlight, and no they didn’t get my best side. Hardly surprising as I had been out weathering the storm with two very disgruntled dogs. I couldn’t quite fathom if they were disgruntled because I had taken them out, in quite frankly horrid weather, or if it was a result of it being far too late in the day. Willow is a morning dog, she likes 7am, by four in the afternoon she wants to be in her armchair snoozing away, not out in the rain. In fact, she’s not unlike someone else I know who likes to be in the armchair at a similar time in the afternoon… Anyway I digress. So I drop the dogs home, and walk to the pub. I had spent five minutes comfortably assuring myself there was no way I could do any pilates or exercise without a shower, and there was no point changing in the cold, and consequently, my rather disheveled appearance and I found ourselves walking right into the waiting grasp of a lady with a mobile phone. Not that unusual, but this one was conducting interviews for Spotlight. People from the media always turn up when you decide not to add an extra bit of mascara, so there I was accompanied by an over large woolly hat, a pair of not particularly attractive wellington boots and an old coat. I did recoil, but was rather manhandled and coerced by Mr Jones, who pushed me firmly in front of the awaiting mobile, and perhaps, considering the camera angle, holding a candelabra was not a wise move. I knew I had dropped myself in it when the lady with the mobile said, that is perfect, and fixed me with one of those looks that said, well now I can go and have a beer on a Friday night.
About forty minutes later, a pint of Guinness nicely snuggled into my palm, the phone went. Not the normal phone, the fancy electric thing with the answer phone that cuts off after a few rings, because that phone requires power, and we had no electric. The phone that was shrilly cutting through the dimly lit Friday night banter was the bright red baker-light imitation. It looks a bit like one of those red phones on the nuclear submarines in the old war movies. Thankfully it wasn’t Boris on the other end, looking for some of our brave local Marines to send to Ukraine, it was Spotlight, could I take them some more film please. Well, if I was going to be on telly, I might as well make sure that people knew it was the Rod and Line in Tideford. So with what little battery I had left I shot a bit of film and then proceeded to walk half a mile up the road to find enough signal to send a Wassap. The whole process took about an hour, because of course, then I had to walk back again, in the dark. At some point later that night, after the Spotlight broadcast, and a few more pints of well deserved Guinness, I had after-all worked up a thirst, the electric spluttered back into life, and despite a few false starts it remained. Light, power, till, phone, card machine all reinstated, and off I went for a shower and some hot tea.
The whole thing is slightly more amusing in the sunlit afternoon of the following Tuesday, there are people asking for my autograph although I think they might be pulling my leg. Its a bittersweet scenario and I still can’t quite be entirely happy about the situation as we really did loose a lot of trade, equally I don’t expect people to climb up to great heights in gale force winds, so I can understand the issues. But it was that day, that half term day when people travel and it was the last day of term for teachers and anyone school related so it would have been busy, and everyone knows that the industry needs busy, but it can’t be helped. We could have been better prepared. Thats what I would have said if I had seen the interview on Spotlight, your fault for not being ahead of the game…
As for Mr Jones, well you can guess how he took the inconvenience. He was the first and probably only person to point out to anyone, and everyone who would listen, that the world relies far too much on “eBay and the electric telly”. In other words, the internet and any technological device that connects to it.
In fact, having a power-cut in Cornwall he reasoned, was the same as having two spoonfuls of snow, it brought the county to its knees. He sat on the Clock table looking quite pleased with his discovery, but was less pleased when he discovered I had no mobile signal, so he couldn’t ring anyone who wasn’t present and complain to them about it.
Don’t worry he made up for that on Saturday…
As I sit here with a cup of tea, with the buzz of some awful daytime TV programme overhead, I know that he is sort of right. Which is always annoying, so please don’t tell him that. Fridays are my day to do the house work, finish of those last bits of paper work, tidy up for the weekend so I can start Monday feeling far better about a Monday than I ought too. Effectively I lost a day. No house work, half the wages completed, no shower because I had planned to do the wages first, no coffee, which at 9:27am in the morning is quite frankly a travesty, and no phone signal, and now I’m playing catchup. We also had no till, no card machine, because who these days has cash? No gas because it uses an electric interlocker, no oil boiler because it has an electronic interface, even the biomass boiler needs electric. Having no power is not much help to running a business in 2022. Neither is is any help at all for those who need to rely on technology to survive, vulnerable people who were without heating, or lifelines. But lost revenue aside, there is a little bit of me that loved the drama of it, it is the same feeling that sits in the air when it snows, these natural occurrences always force our gregarious race to come together, often in my experience at central points like the pub, because there is a warm fire, candle light, beer and camaraderie. It reminds me how important proper old fashioned boozers are to their local communities and why we should support them. We couldn’t take cards, but we could take IOU’s and they have all be paid back. So next time, if we find ourselves without power, I will attempt be a little more prepared, so that we can carry on in a bit more of an organised fashion. Not because I want to ensure I make the most financial gain out of a bad situation, but because I want to make sure we can still support those people around us, The Rod is not just any port in a storm, it’s the only port in Tideford, and it should at least still have its lights on.