It was the laptop that alerted me to the fact that trouble was on the way: every few minutes, it gave a warning bleep as the power dipped. Outside, by midday the sky was darkening and with the wind came a deafening shower of hail. A force 12 hurricane was what the radio said but, you know, I've been in big winds before, in the Sahara, the Caribbean. No, a little storm in Donegal I could deal with. After all, this was what I had come for - to cut out the madness of Christmas, get back to basics, deal with the challenge of rural living.
So that when the power finally failed, I felt smug. I had my turf fire and with a large stack of turf outside, there'd be no need to stint: I could heat up as much water as I needed for hot water bottles or the odd hot whiskey. I had enough food to last two weeks. There were three oil lamps, plenty of oil and I had even brought up from Dublin a good length of wick. I sat back in the rocking chair and, picking up my book - The Book of Revelation (King James Version) - congratulated myself on my preparedness.
Hailstones came down the chimney, hopping out on to the hearth like tiny, demented demons.The chimney itself thundered with wind. Outside, what had started as a moan grew to a roar. I tried to concentrate on Revelation: " . . . And lo there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind." I put down the book and started to tick off the things I didn't have. What I'd thought were wicks turned out to be strips of asbestos. My sole light supply, therefore, amounted to one whole candle and three butts. Reading would have to be rationed. The batteries in the radio were old and would also have to be rationed to weather forecasts and the news. And the news wasn't good. The storm, said RTE, would be worst in Donegal.
The noise made me restless and I went through to the lower gable-end room to have a look through the big, plate glass window. Outside, the shed and beyond it the fields were tipping crazily as if trying to keep their balance. I leaned on the window to get a better look - and realised it was the glass itself that was moving, throbbing under the pressure of the wind. For the next half hour I steadied it with my hands, ducking every time a bit of tree came sailing through the air. If the wind didn't get it, then a mobile branch would. And if the glass went, the wind would get in and the tin roof would go. There was only one thing to do: ram a mattress up against the window to absorb the shock.
That done, I wrapped the laptop in a plastic bag and moved books and papers into the top room which I reckoned would be the driest if the worst happened. (I learned to my cost, in Antigua, that, after the hurricane, it's the rain that does most damage.) The radio had already reported a family whose roof had blown off and they lived only 10 miles away.
By midnight, the roof was still there, the storm had abated and I went to bed. Next day, the air was still, the mountains covered in snow. Fallen branches and guttering covered the ground. By midday, an icy rain was falling.
Life centred on getting in the turf, keeping the fire going, the house dry. The turf stack was covered by four layers of plastic which flapped uncontrollably in the wind. The base of the stack was thick with mud. My fingers froze as I dug deep beneath the plastic to pull out the turf. I wore two pairs of socks and washed only those parts of myself that were visible.
On the third day without electricity, I made a run for it. Walking the four miles to the main road, through flurries of snow, I thumbed a lift into Killybegs to buy some new guttering and found that, unbeknownst to me, the festive season was still going on: it was a bank holiday. Nothing was open. Instead of guttering, I bought a three-day-old newspaper and the largest bottle of wine I could find. And felt relieved to see the Killybegs fleet safely in harbour.
New Year's Eve was a day of sunshine and brilliant blue sky. I walked over to visit Tony, who lives in a little thatched house with a turf fire set straight on the ground, socks drying over the rafters, not much furniture. Just as he likes it. "I'd have cycled over to see you," he said, "only in this weather, you might get wet and then you could get the flu." He has got the phone in now, and wondered how I managed without one. Tony has got a good handle on nature: stay in, stay dry - and move with the times. It's a survival strategy I'm going to look into.
