It seems as though autumn has definitely arrived – the only hope now is that the weather gods will decide to taunt us by giving us summer as soon as the children go back to school.
The Saturday of the holiday weekend was marked by torrential rain & thunder claps noiseful enough to make you fear for the window panes.
This summer has been marked by alarming reports of lightning strikes inside houses, even with all doors & windows closed tight. The advice is to unplug electrical appliances, especially computers & televisions, whenever thunder is about.
For years I took special care to unplug the television aerial in these circumstances, having learned the hard way that this was advisable.
The television was almost new – the first we had had in colour. I was sitting watching Wimbledon, the commentator was saying ‘Well, it’s not raining right now, but it doesn’t look good over to the west.’ I was just informing him that it was indeed raining in Notting Hill when there was a kind of pop & the screen was totally blank. Nothing revived it & I was forced to consider that the flash of lightning had had something to do with it.
I expected a sceptical response from the man in the television shop, but he simply said, ‘Oh, yes?’ in a neutral tone.
‘So, can that really happen?
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Well, can you fix it?’
The answer was yes & we got it back a week later, with the advice about unplugging the aerial.
Which was adhered to until I mentioned it one day to an electrician who was doing some work on the house.
‘Well, that’s OK if you don’t mind having your house set alight – the flash could easily start your carpets burning if it cannot just go into the tv.’
So we have, ever since, decided that, given the choice, we will sacrifice the electric gizmos & gadgets.
