Power Out!

On this island we buy our electricity from Kos. Odd though this may seem, that's the way it is. We have wind turbines which produce some electricity to sell, but we still have to buy what we use from Kos.

Two days ago we had a power cut, and I mean a POWER CUT - 5 hours' worth. I had just got the chicken out to make a curry and wham, or rather plop, everything went off. That was at 6.30. Now, we get quite a lot of power cuts, but they're usually ½ hour or less. So luckily I'd bought some tea lights after we'd had power out during some thunderstorms. Luckily my kind neighbour had given us a two tea lights and I'd learnt my lesson and had bought some. So when the power went off I lit the candles and our tiny, temporary while-the-house-is-being-built apartment looked like a fairy grotto.

I couldn't afford to abandon the idea of chicken curry as this little fridge is not to be trusted and I couldn't be sure a couple of days wasn't too much for it to hang around (I'd bought it 2 days before as it was). No freezer, only ice box with no cover. I felt quite like a pioneer! I peered at the chopping board and chopped the onions and garlic into more or less little bits, trying not to chop my fingers off - very rough chopped! Put some oil into the pot and bunged it onto the camping gas stove on medium-ish. This tends to be high or low and I have to twitch it to go to medium. Rich was pouring Metaxa-and-colas (our particular noggin) and couldn't see properly so we ended up pissed as farts because they were a bit strong ("oh that's probably right"). So I then chucked in the chicken with some curry powder generously donated by friend returning to UK and stirred it around a bit. Emptied in a tin of tomatoes with what spices I've managed to get, cumin, pepper, salt oh and some yoghurt (always available here of course). Added some hot water and slapped the lid on. When I thought it was probably ready about 45 minutes later, whipped it off and stuck the rice on - remember only one plate camping gas stove. I have one small saucepan so I kept forking it over with a candle held up to check. Couldn't "wash" it, no hot water and no kettle (and no time what with curry etc to heat pan), so bunged some on plates after sticking curry back on to bring back to boil.

Amazingly it was delicious. We were rather pissed by then and couldn't stop giggling. We only have one halogen heater and climbed into bed as we were so cold. Rosie-the-dog dived under the duvet to warm up too. At 11.30 the power came back on, by which time the candles were very low or gone out. It turned out it was a local blackout (or as Richard calls it a brownout as bedside light was dimly on, as was the electric fire - bit of light, no heat), Christmas lights in the area were on too, very weird. We'd had internet problems all day and Richard reckons they put a spade thrrough the cable trying to fix the internet.