We’ve been in splendid isolation here for some weeks now. We see Virgo for a couple of minutes when she drops off our shopping and she has brought her children for a suitably distanced outside visit on a couple of other occasions. I have to tell you it breaks your heart when a four year old sits at the appropriate distance and whispers ' When the germs go can we come to visit again?' Apart from this we’ve seen only the occasional delivery person - that is until yesterday when I turned on my computer and modem and things went wild.
It started with the lights on the laptop and modem flashing randomly and a ‘fizzing’ noise issuing from the power point. Panicked, I immediately switched it off and unplugged the power board. I took a moment or two then decided I should see if the power board was the problem. Almost holding my breath I plugged it in to another power point, turned it on - and everything was fine. Phew.
This still left me with the problem of what I should do next? Should I just turn that power point off and not use it - it hadn’t tripped the household power after all or should I call an electrician which is a big thing in these days of social distancing. Given I’m very nervous about electrical matters at the best of times I opted for the latter and called someone who has done some work for us before. He talked me through a few things on the phone and once he heard about the ‘fizzing’ noise decided he needed to come and check it out.
Now this particular power point is located in a slightly awkward corner - there’s a large and very densely packed bookcase close to it. The weight makes moving it impossible without - shudder - emptying it completely. Truth be told I'd known this needed sorting and had been trying successfully to avoid doing anything about it for quite some time. Now, though, there was no question but that I was going to have to tackle the task because, while it's simple enough to get to the switch to turn it on and off, for the electrician to actually work on it would require much more space. I was pushed for time before he arrived but I managed to clear off the shelves in a couple of hours. That was the easy part it turns out because now I have to work through everything, decide what to keep and what to dispose of then put what's left back on the shelves. This is a huge job and not one I'd want to tackle at the best of times and these are definitely not the best of times. I have no idea how long it's going to take but at least all will be clean and in order when I've finished.
Oh and the electrician discovered that something had come adrift in the box holding the power point so it stayed on continually creating an erratic current flow when anything was plugged in. Not a good thing to leave unrepaired he says.
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