Tip-tapping away

The power went out at 3:03am. This I know for only I, as far as I know, am up at such an ungodly hour on an almost regular basis. The scarey thing about a power cut is you immediately become the star of a horror film and with every creak and clink you hear, you imagine a masked invader lurking outside with giant pliers, snipping wires and assessing open windows. The dogs are never any good in these situations because they just snore and even when I rouse them (as rousingly as I can muster in my high-pitched, neurotic stage whisper) they open one eye and then fall back to sleep. There is no moon, so by patting my way along the walls to the sitting room book case I found a nice green plastic torch and ventured outside, in my m&s knickers, cupping my boobs in one hand and my sturdy plastic flashlight in the other. The canyon was completely dark but for the red glow eminating from the city and filling the sky to the southwest. Dotsie reluctantly padded her way to meet me outside but I'm sure if a masked intruder had been lurking, she would have rolled over and asked for a biscuit. The dark canyon reassured me that we hadn't had our wires snipped but that others were suffering the same fate and unless we were in a July 4 disaster movie, this was a common all garden power cut (or outage as they say here en Amerique). So, being the hard-hitting reporter that I am, settled down with my handheld to tap away a posting via stylus and electronic keyboard for this very blog. I've never really been known for my patience, but one thing became very clear to me - if I ever get paralyzed from the neck down and have to dictate my best-selling memoir to my nurse using the blinking of one eye, I'm not going to get very far at all. I might manage the C in chapter one. My new phone has a delightful habit of suggesting words. I think it's called predictive text. Now, I don't know where these suggestions come from but I SWEAR TO GOD every time I type "the" it suggests "thebastards" (sic). I kid you not. Needless all was lost, yes lost, to our dear friend cyber space.