Walking Tuesday: 3.9 km
Swimming Tuesday: 1.00 km
Walking Wednesday: 3.8 km
Walking Thursday: 3.9 km
Walking Saturday: 3.8 km
Moles caught this week / Year to date
Tim - 1 / 2
Pip - 1 / 6
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Speed of Light in air: 300,000,000 metres per second
Speed of Sound in air: 340 metres per second
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Ever since I realised that light travels almost instantly whilst sound is much slower - with sound taking 5 seconds to cover a mile - I've been a compulsive lightning counter - "1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1000 and 1 mile ...".
I've seen lightning strike the ground (from the safety of a building) and I've been so close to lightning strikes (from the safety of a building) that the light and sound seem to arrive at the same time.
The storm last Thursday lunchtime didn't seem too serious, thunder had been rumbling around for an hour or so without any visible lightning and even when the dark clouds of a storm cell appeared behind Grand Carné, Patrick the Mayor's farm, I was still counting to 1008 after the lightning flashes.
The double strike caught the corner of my eye above Dominique's farm and the thundercrash was immediate, dramatic and seemed to go on for 20 seconds. I guessed that the power lines had been hit - the 11,000 volt intermediate lines have a big transformer on a pole next to their farmhouse which steps down the voltage to our domestic 220V - and the electricity had gone off immediately. We had been working outside by the Grange, our stone outbuilding, and Pip had been peacefully dozing in an old potato box (uniquely among cats he seemed immune to loud noises and hadn't stirred as the thunder approached). He covered the 4 metres from his box to the top of the kingpin in the roof in approximately the speed of light when the lightning struck.
ERdF (the electrical network provider) initially reacted very fast and had a helicopter flying over the 220,000V pylons, which run 500m from our boundary, within 30 minutes - presumably the backbone network had been struck in one or several places as well. About a hour afterwards we retired indoors for a cup of tea and, as we were sitting indoors there was a big crash from upstairs. It sounded like Jess had emerged from wherever she had fled to but the reality was a bit stranger - one of our lightbulbs had exploded:
The bulb was a compact fluorescent one with a circuit board in the base which had burnt out and was blackened and charred. My guess is that it had received a voltage spike and a capacitor had been quietly cooking away until it failed. This didn't bode well for other damage to our more delicate equipment, the para-foudre (lightning protector) on the main EDF board had dropped out, all the Earth leakage breakers on the barn board had tripped and significantly the only miniature circuit breaker to drop out was on the circuit supplying the modem. Worse I found a text message from Orange warning me to disconnect my Livebox (modem) due to electrical storms - it was from 9.30 in the morning.
Two ERdF blue lorries came down our lane later in the afternoon, a hopeful sign, but they didn't stay for long and the phone operator said that EDF expected to correct the problem by 8pm, later revised to 11.30 pm. Next morning came with no power and the helpful lady on the phone said now it would be midday. I saw Dominique and Patrick the mayor discussing things outside the elevage and went to see what they knew as we passed on our way to go shopping. The farmers are well organised for power losses but it isn't easy for them, Dominique had to keep one of his tractors running all night connected to the ventilation system on his poultry barn to stop the birds suffocating and he has a generator for the milking barn but it reduces capacity so milking takes longer. Patrick said the strike had been on a post near to his barn, he also said he'd been speaking to EDF and France Telecom to get them to test the phone lines (it's useful having the mayor as a near neighbour!). They both laughed at the midday promise though!
On our way to Muzillac we passed an ERdF convoy of three lorries, the first one had a very big shiny transformer on it - looking hopeful.
Power came back on just before midday! As feared our Orange Livebox had been damaged - "brûlée" in French - so I arranged to go to the shop in Vannes to collect a replacement. Sitting in the waiting area we met Nicole, Dominique's wife, with her Livebox under her arm. "Brûlée?" I asked her, "Trés brulée!" ...
Fortunately the equipment in the barn pretty much escaped damage, protected by the Earth leakage breakers we had specified and that were installed by our electrician Steve. The circuits in the house, specified and installed by Yannick our French electrician, don't seem to have been nearly as effective as most of the damage happened in the house and to date our damage report is:
Three lightbulbs failed
One small screen TV not working
A powerless satellite decoder
At least two of the eight channels on the satellite dish aren't working
But no-one was hurt .... And the electrical items can be easily replaced.
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