About 10 years ago I was looking for something at the camping supplies store and noticed a solar charging camping light. It was reasonably priced so I bought it. We keep it on a sunny windowsill and forget it is there until a power outage occurs and it is the first thing I look for to place it in a good clear space. It works every time. We have not - yet - had a power outage at night which lasted long enough for the lantern to run out of power so it has done the job admirably.

I was on the phone to my Dad many years ago and suddenly there was a very loud, very scary explosion near the side street fence. The transformer on the power pole had gone boom. The landline phone went dead and a few hours later when I phoned Dad after the power was restored he told me he thought I had just hung up on him. I worried that he had been upset for all that time, thinking I had hung up on him, but he was ok. In more recent years a transformer exploded further up the street and people from neighbouring streets were standing in our street investigating source of the loud noise.

Our neighbourhood is a good community, so when disaster strikes we help each other out. We had a huge wind storm nearly 20 years ago and the big solid-looking tree near our back fence was blown over into the neighbours' yard and cut their electricity line. One of our other neighbours lent us a very long electrical cord and we plugged it in at our place and put it over the fence to keep their essentials on. It's a good feeling living in a good community.