Sunday, February 8, 2009

Smoke, Water and Power

First I watched the news at about 10pm which informed me that there were bushfires in Victoria. Everywhere.

At about 11pm I could smell smoke in the air and wondered how far away the nearest bushfire was.

At 1am, I heard water. Where is it coming from? Turns out the water sprinklers were on in my front garden. How are they on and how do I stop it? Don't even know where the freaking switch is?? Is it automatic or did someone decide to switch it on?? Or is it some pipe that's burst or something??

This is the main thing I don't like about living alone - you have to deal with everything your damn self!

Decided to call the local police and start with 'I know this is going to sound really stupid...'

Anyway, the person who picked up the call was very nice about it and told me that the previous owner probably set the sprinklers to turn on once a fortnight or so and it'll turn off soon. And if it didn't I should call back.

It did.

Woke up this morning to the smell of even stronger smoke. Looked out of the window and even the house across the street is a little bit cloudy looking due to the smoke.


Out my bedroom window - It's 10am and there are no clouds, yet it's as if there's no sun.

Decided not to panic - if there really was a fire somewhere nearby surely there would be sirens? Must be a huge fire a few 100km away and the wind blew it over.

Fed Milton his breakfast and as I was there I heard a loud bang and one of the lighbulbs in my room exploded. Half the house had lost power.

Stuck with the dilemma of what to do again. I could:

1. Go over to my neighbour and look like a completely incompetent country dweller - which I am.
2. Do it my damn self.

Spent half an hour searching for the electricity box in the house, which eventually made me realize maybe it's outside the house.

Decided all of the switches should be 'on' not 'off' and flicked 2 of them back to that and voila - my house had power again.

Conclusion? I'm looking forward to my housemates returning and I really hope the bushfire isn't anywhere near where I am. Smoke getting stronger as we speak.

3 comments:

  1. I was going to ask if you were ok - what you should have been doing was probably listening to the ABC's radio broadcast at 77.4 AM. It's really helpful. Hope everything's ok.

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  2. Oh and the CFA website as well. http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/

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  3. We did fine... fire was at least 1.5 hours away from where I am, which was good. Yeah, I just checked for updates at CFA. Reassuring.

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