Rick's b.log - entry 2025/02/18

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A day without power

I unloaded the fridge. The only thing in the freezer was some ice cream that I threw out (about 3°C outside so too cold to eat, wouldn't last) and the 1.5l bottle of frozen water to keep the cool box cool.

I wasn't able to unscrew the three phase socket. Far too old and too corroded. Instead I went up into the attic and poked around. There is, indeed, only four conductors in that cable. So the absence of phase three is a very literal absence.

The lightswitch for the attic had stopped working many years ago, so I salvaged the inside of one of the switches in the field barn. That has all been disconnected because our neighbour damaged some of the wiring with his tractor and even trying to take some of that out of circuit, the trip switch (a 650mA trip) would throw in heavy rain, so I went up into the attic, traced where the wires were, and disconnected it.

At half one in the afternoon, having completely defrosted and cleaned the freezer...and the fridge not so much as dripping...I made my second tea using water in a saucepan and headed up the road to see if there was any post.

My lane was blocked again, and they've done a number on the side of the road there, bringing that tank down.

The old switching unit was lying on the grass, with the replacement patch cables behind it. I do love the vague nod to Health and Safety.

It will be weird not having that on top of the pole any longer. And, yes, that's the sort of stupid crap that I would notice.

Speaking of stuff vanishing, you remember that big ol' transformer block? Gone. Gone so much that I didn't even see it to take a photo.

The 20kV is now routed under the road to the green box.

Speaking of the green box, the engineer had just arrived so I asked if I could take a photo. He said "yes you can", in English...
I was expecting a larger transformer in the box. It was actually rather more complicated than that.

He was still working, so there may be more inside - perhaps to the right of the central part where it's a bit empty?

This is correctly known as a "poste HTA/BT" (high tension/low tension station) and it is a "poste au sol simplifié" (simple ground-mounted station). It is "simple" because it only needs to deal with up to 250kVA. I don't know what the actual installed capacity is.

Speaking of capacity, I heard a hum so I went up the road a little to see what sort of generator the neighbour (not the disaster, a different nicer neighbour) was using. It was a rented monster.

Able to run for 23 hours on 75% fill of diesel (which means about 188 litres, at around 8l/hr), this thing is rated for 60kVA/48kW/86A three-phase 400/230V. It isn't designed to cope with running at any sort of overload (some gennies will do x normally and something like x+5% for a short time), however the safety will trip at 160A. Make of that what you will.
The FPT engine outputs 54kW with 73.3 horsepower at 1500rpm, the Stamford generator can generate up to 62.5kW 3+N star-form 50Hz at 2250 rpm. Yes, I found a datasheet online. ☺

That's the freezer compartment. Basically maintaining a barely-functional freezer is what creates the cold for the rest of the fridge. It also has a horrible tendency to ice up. This isn't bad, this is... what accumulates aftera while. Maybe half a year to a year? I have last noted defrosting this on the 8^th of August 2023, but I'm sure I have done it since then, because the time prior to that was the 29^th of December 2022, which would mean it would need a clear-out every 9-10 months (or so). That being said, with having an actual freezer I don't need to put anything in there any more, so maybe I did leave it thirteen months and that's why it took forever to defrost?

I went and did some strimming around the end of the house to whack down the old weeds and offer a lesson on the harsh realities of life to the brambles that were trying to grow there. I also, since I had the cutter disc on, went and hacked off the sprouting bits of that willow that I chainsawed, covering myself in many bits of wood and other assorted crap.

When I was done, I dumbly switched the light on in the shed and it actually took a few moments for me to thing "oh, you twat" followed by "hang on, it's working".
I sprinted around the back to unplug the fridge and freezer. ☺

If you're wondering about the performance, it's because it was only 3pm. The power came back on two hours ahead of schedule. So I was able to stop faffing in the garden and use some gentle hairdryer persuasion to try to get the fridge going.

After a lot of time, it had defrosted enough that I could loosen and then remove big blocks of ice. The final block didn't take long after that, but alas the temperature sensor wire was caught up in it. So I boiled a small cup of water and then gently, holding the ice in one hand, dipped a screwdriver into the hot water and then held it to the ice to melt a way to release the wire. It took about five minutes and my other hand was getting painfully cold. But, finally, I could wiggle the wire free and pull out the big piece of ice...
...that I went outside and threw to the ground while yelling "Bastard!". Well, it made me feel a little bit better.

A wipe-down of the fridge to dry it, and then it was turned back on and everything put back inside. Everything being two blocks of unopened cheddar, a milk that started the day unopened but was now at three quarters thanks to the tea consumption, a Starbucks something-or-other (it was on special offer), a pack of marge, and a block of butter.

There's nothing to go in the freezer, so I haven't bothered turning it on yet. I'll do that tomorrow or Thursday, whatever day I feel like going shopping. Probably tomorrow, tea without actual milk is unforgivable. Before I got a job and could buy my own, mom - for some inexplicable reason - usually bought UHT. She did buy me real milk but nowhere near as much as I actually consume. UHT is... just vile. It'll do in a pinch if, like, the zombie apocalypse happens, but otherwise it should be white stuff that recently fell out of a cow's nipple (almost - I drink semi-skimmed so it's more like "that white stuff that recently fell out of a cow's nipple with all the fatty bits taken out").

Okay, now, so I slightly overestimated how much pasta to cook (a mix of all the different ones that I have) so some fell over the side of the bowl when I tipped it all out. Yes, that much. And, oh my god, I was writing this and absentmindedly stabbing my fork into bits of pasta until... there was none left. And, now we're getting into crazy territory... because I'm looking at that tin of peach pieces and trying to come to a decision. But it's a bit big after all of that pasta. Maybe I should just have a Mars? I'm just guessing my sugar level needs a gentle nudge. Yes, I think a Mars would be better than trying to pile peach on top of pasta. Then, I think, to bed. It's half nine. Might be something on Netflix, but I'm kind of tired so I might just turn out the light and put headphones on, listen to something relaxing like the new Nightwish album, in which Holopainen goes full on cinematic score, even moreso than their previous album - though there is no epic rocking this time around, he longest song is only 9m26, many are around the six minute mark. Compare with Endless Forms Most Beautiful that ended with a lovely twenty four minute masterpiece. That being said, when I listened to part of it the other day while doing some stuff, I did feel that the mix was...odd...like the vocals were kind of getting buried under the orchestration.
But, then, as is increasingly usual with Nightwish, I expect to see plenty of negative reviews because "it's not what I call symphonic metal". Well, okay, go listen to Within Temptation then, because for me Nightwish isn't so much about the songs (in fact, some of the lyrics are either quite bizarre or I'm absolutely mishearing them), it's about the experience. I know that sounds cliché as hell, but there's a lot more to a Nightwish song than just reciting the words on cue. It's following those little intricacies in the orchestration, it's a little bit of everything, and I guess these sorts of songs would suck for people unprepared to shut out the world and invest themselves in the music.
I can do that, and I actually do it quite frequently (I use music to help me process my emotional state, hence the heavy skew towards goth), so I it isn't a problem for me to take the time to appreciate this sort of music. In fact, the reason that I am writing it is exactly because I do.

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