Woooops

Slightly misread last nights "Red sky at night".

At about 2:00 am was woken by the distant sound of thunder. The few flashes of lightning were a long way away but as I was now well awake thought I might have a cup of coffee and check on TV teletext what the weather thought it was doing.

At around 2:20 there was an almighty flash, felt like it was in the garden. Naturally the fuses tripped. Waited a few minutes until I thought it had passed, spending the time watching the LED Solar Garden Gnomes having a great time, going out each time the sky flashed and then re-emerging in full glory, their batteries fully recharged in a millisecond.

Switched the fuses back on to find telephone/router and Sat TV no longer working. Went back to sleep hoping they would repair themselves.

In the morning, damage inspection:
Telephone/Router - completely dead, not a single LED lights up.
WLAN Repeater - completely dead, not a single LED lights up.
Electric/Hydraulic Gate - dead
SAT/TV - after a bit of crawling around in the attic found that one of about 6 connections in a "Multi switching" box (distributes the sat signal). It was the one connection in use at the time of the "hit" so just had to move the cable to a spare socket. So slight damage but of no consequence.

We have a very good RCD/RCCB and 30 trip switches but none of them can protect from a lightning caused overload. It's a lot worse for us as we are at the end of the power line, it doesn't go further! The only solution according to the electricity company is to lay a cable in a deep trench dug in a circle around the house; given the cost, not an option.

Very first step was for Angie (on holiday this week) to contact insurance company who weren't very helpful, particularly sad as they are part of the same organisation she works for. However I think we have cover. Will find out next week when she's back at work. For the moment we have to get things done as we can't open the drive gate or phone/surf.

Next step was to contact the gate manufacturer who had installed it in 1978. Very robust if old technology but the circuit board installed in the gate posts has in the past shown a dislike to lightning strikes. Luckily they had an engineer with a spare circuit board in the area and a few hours later he turned up to exchange it. Five minute job but needless to say, expensive ... grrrrrr.

Then I set off to Memmingen to buy a new telephone/router. Some might remember my Blip on the day I bought it in February.. grrrrr.

By the time I got home all I could do was hitch it up to allow us telephone contact. Nowadays these boxes need a bit more than just being plugged in. Even our calls are now only possible using the internet. So for the moment no WLAN etc, so now Bliping etc but able to keep an eye out on emails using our mobile phones.

For the moment we can get in/out of the property and are reachable by phone. The rest will have to wait and hopefully explains unanswered emails and failing Blips.

I didn't even manage a photo, yet again stealing another of Angie's. She is "Moonstruck" at the moment. Interesting to know that the proper meaning is "somnambulism" also known as "Lunatismus" - we have Luna-tismus daily.
The Blip is identical to one she posted a few days ago on her journal. Both Blips are straight out of the camera.