It's 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday and the high winds and heavy rain predicted by the forecasters have swept into this part of England.

The rain has been lashing at my windows for the last three hours, and the lights are now flickering every few minutes.

Here's hoping that the predominantly overhead distribution network in this rural area stands up to it.....

I'll spare a thought for the poor linemen who have to turn out tonight if it doesn't.

The joys of living in the sticks hey Paul.
Us townies very rarly suffer from anything like that! Just traffic Chaose around Spagettie junction daily. M6, M5, M42 A38M Aggg...

Hi Paul

Well now...I was supposed to be stripping out in a farmhouse attic today - no chance too HOT! We had a brief (heavy) shower at tea time, but the rest of the day the sun has been splitting the trees!! (Not fair, I know) Trouble is it's way too humid to be working at anything more strenuous than a light second fix...

I live in the stickas as well, but we have had extensive HT upgrades over the last 10 years. Have a standby genny but only pulled the string twice in anger since about 1995...and BOY do we get wind/rain/other nasty things!!! Gotta hand it to NORWEB/TXU/UU; they spend money up here! We have a really excellent OH network - not much UG here either, except where money or planners demand it!

Yep - spare a thought for the pole vaulters; not much fun in this weather. One of our local gangs was off down South when I saw them earlier, so they were obviously expecting some severe probs and long hours. Nearly went down that route myself in the eighties...kinda glad I didn't when the rain is horizontal and the wind-chill somewhere like Arctic!

Cheers:

John

Yep, we also get the wet and windswept winter countryside, twisty little backlanes with no drainage that turn into swamps in heavy rain, and all the other associated things.

But I wouldn't swap it for city life. Out here you can walk around in safety, leave your car unlocked most of the time, and still find neighbors who will look out for you. And we do have a new Tesco about 5 miles away which stays open until 10 p.m. now!

Never had to go out on those sort of emergency calls to climb a pole, but having been in telephone engineering I know all too well how miserable it can be climbing poles even in just light wind and rain.

So to all of you who do have to carry out this emergency work: Thanks!

Tommorrow i have to make a 3" sch 40/80 UG feed into a live meter, existing OH fed.... the digger digs, rain or shine....


seems the kis gotta eat on bad days too.

~S~