Our power is back on after over ninety hours. Our roof is repaired. Much of the frozen food stayed frozen. They named the storm Xynthia and it was a whopper, at least for France. The storm center moved up from Portugal on a path directly over us overnight on Saturday. We had hurricane force winds that blew down a lot of trees. One of them took down the power lines that serve our neighborhood. That was about 4:30 am on Sunday.
The electric company can't get to the line right away. They are swamped with emergency repairs all over the region (not to mention the coast, where most of the damage was) and the line is on a rather steep wooded slope. So they showed up Wednesday night around 10:00 pm with a huge 100 kW generator for our hamlet. The lights are back on, temporarily, until they can restore the line.
That's good news. It means we have power and heat again. Although, as you probably know if you read the comments on the last post, we have a wood burning stove that kept us relatively warm, and we have a gas cook-top so we were able to boil water and heat food. It was a little like camping (in winter!). We are warm, dry, and safe, and that's a good thing.
We'll blog more about the details in the next day or so, along with some photos. In the meantime, I have to head up to Blois this morning for my colonoscopy.
Many thanks to CHM for keeping in contact and posting updates in our blog comments!
About the Author
- wcs
- Loire Valley, France
- Living outside of Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher since 2003. You'll find here pictures and descriptions of our daily life in rural France, some travels, and other stuff about me, my husband Ken, and our dog Tasha.
It's good to read you again. Pity they couldn't bring that generator a couple of days earlier. It would have made your lives so much more comfortable. Nevertheless, I'm glad that your both Okay! Good luck today!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your...procedure!
ReplyDeleteGood to see you have power back. Hope tomorrow goes well.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear you weren't too uncomfortable and, more importantly, that the contents of your freezer survived !!
ReplyDeleteWelcome back !!
Good to hear you guys are OK. Look forward to you continuing news.
ReplyDeleteDare I say. I love the thought of a "nasty girl".
Leon
What did you do to anger Mother Nature? I'm very happy you were able to save most (all?) of your frozen food. You'd be surprised how much money it adds up to if you inventoried it.
ReplyDeleteTake care and I can't wait to see the storm pics.
Colonoscopy Day isn't celebrated in New Hampshire. We find it just too, well, personal to even mention it. We understand that there's quite a celebration in Massachusetts, but then they also celebrate the Feast of the Circumcision.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your procedure. Glad to have you back!
ReplyDeleteverification word: ookiedu
So glad you're back!
ReplyDeleteBettyAnn
Y'all should feel fortunate. If you lived on Florida, your power would still be off. Very clever of them to bring in the generator for the whole village.
ReplyDeleteI'm just glad you're safe. Fingers crossed for everything coming together nicely.
ReplyDeletemartine, it makes us think we should invest in our own generator...
ReplyDeleteevol, thanks! It went well.
jim, so are we! Thanks.
jean, we were convinced it would be a total loss.
leon, somehow I knew that about you...
larry, not sure. I never use butter substitute, Parkay or otherwise! hehehe...
bill, sounds like the Bay State has a lot going for it...
cheryl, it all went fine. Okeedokey-du!
bettyann, thanks! And good to see you back here!
starman, these guys do an amazing job, considering.
alewis, thanks! So far, so good.