Bucking Flatteries

I was just curled up in bed in the early hours when the lights went
out and the UPS supplying my router and server started beeping.
Big deal - they are playing with the leccy again.
Maybe five minutes later the beeping stops, I turn over and the street
light across the road is lit. Usual story - get some sleep.

<snores>

Mug of tea and some toast then check for email ...... **** NO ROUTER.
No leccy to router - hmmmm, no leccy to server either. Check UPS.
Dead as a dodo.
Much screwdrivering later I dig two 12 volt batteries out of it and
wave them at a meter. Less than a volt each - Oh Shit.
Try charging, both flatteries are fucked after only 4 years of use.
Canibalise two batteries from bikes, lash up to remains of UPS, looks
good, OK so the flatteries are the only problem.

Fortunately Maplin open on sundays to off to Bristol for some shopping,
rebuild UPS, back online by 7pm.

Its a bloody conspiracy.
Maybe Yuasa batteries will last longer ........

 

I have a UPS, the national grid!

Move to somewhere less pikey.

 

In Watford ?

You must have a short memory. Its less than 9 months ago that someone
tried nicking the copper and plunged the whole town into darkness

 

A flakey leccy supply is all part of the joy of village life.
Too much overhead wire between the village and the grid.
At least they are digging up some of the crap ancient lead cables and
giving us some new plastic stuff and lots of holes in the local roads

 

As I said, move to somewhere less pikey.

My parents live in a place(1) where there aren't enough houses to make up even
a village and they have never suffered a power cut since moving there.

 

We once had a power cut and it turned out that the power company had put
the entire road on a generator for several weeks and forgot to put any
diesel in it.

 

Heh.

 

To be fair, most of the cuts around here are short breaks while the
workmen change over to some of the new cables they are laying to replace
the lead sheathed wet string that has been tripping us out for years
every time it rains.

A few more weeks should see an end to their holes in the road, leaving us
with only the problems from the long overhead lines to the grid.