A power cut! Light hearted!

We have strategically placed torches, a camping gas stove, two portable calor gas heaters and plenty of candles. One mobile phone gets reception in the house, the other older one doesn’t, but both always fully charged. Plenty of tinned soup, tomatoes, baked beans, pasta and eggs for quick hot meals, bread, butter, long life milk, tea and coffee and plenty of cheese, ham and salad stuff in the fridge. Wouldn’t want to open the freezer obviously. We could survive for a few days, albeit not very comfortably.

No gas unfortunately.Visgirl

We've chosen to have a replacement gas hob rather than an electric or induction hob.

Having lived through ths Seventies with babies and toddlers and coping with all the power cuts, at least I know there's an alternative if there's a power cut.

I'm so well prepared for emergencies that my friends have actually called me anal. But when the power goes out or there is a food shortage (the Covid lockdowns come to mind) they all bleat at me that they wish they'd got a working torch, an oil lamp, a little camping stove, a few spare tins of food, an unopened pack of loo rolls, etc... Maybe I am anal but I've never been caught napping (nyah nyah). We've never lived in a house with gas, so maybe it's been easier for me to know that I won't be covered in a power cuts (all the advice here to use the gas stove instead made me laugh!).

Boil water on the Gas cooker, for a hot drink, or cook your Porridge on the stove.
If cold weather put gas burners on and sit if you can in the kitchen.

Yes, we know all about power cuts. I am less bothered about torches, but I have a big lap top computer on my desk, plugged in so the battery is always fully charged, I also have a Kindle.

We have a wood burning stove which is invaluable for heating and cooking.

A few years ago, in November we were without gas for a fortnight. Water was getting into the mains and the gas company couldn't find out where.

Obviously we had power and light, an electric kettle and microwave, but a gas cooker. We lit the stove every morning and kept in going all day. Ours is an old house with a huge brick chimney and bread oven and over the days the whole brick edifice heated up like a great storage radiator and effectively heated the whole house, the chimney heated the bedrooms it went through and downstairs the chimney and bread oven, plus stove kept the whole of downstais warm.

I am afraid we became like two children, working out all the things we could do. We slow cooked casseroles and heated kettles on the stove, put foilwrapped potatoes in the stove to cook. The only problem was the lack of hotwater and we used to go round to the local sports centre every few days to have showers.

Oh, meant to be light hearted.. Well, I think Bear Grylls would be proud of me.

Because we get a lot of power cuts here (for some reason not known) I'm fully prepared. Camping gas stove. Candles and matches, spare batteries, torches, LED lights, etc.

While power cuts are less common than when we first moved here, we're still prepared. Torch, battery-powered lamps, candles, two small camping stoves (they currently cost something like £15 to £20, so not a terribly expensive investment). And we have one of those power pack things - but haven't yet fathomed out how to use it to charge our phones!

I have a wind up torch by my bed and one of those pull the cord battery operated lights there too belt and braces

I bought a few lamps off Amazon for such events they’re really brilliant and not expensive

Yes we have strategically placed torches throughout, fleece dressing gowns to keep warm and a gas fire. We would have to eat cold food though ☹️

We often get power cuts when I’m at my partners. Always have candles to hand, with matches of course. Whenever the wind seems to be picking up we make a flask of hot water and a hot water bottle. I bought us both one of those beanie hats with a LED light in which lasts for ages when charged up so we can read etc. Have got an ancient transistor radio so I can hear the local news, but I must invest in a better one. Going to buy one of those kettles that you can put on a log burner. Mind you, we’ve never been without power there for more than24 hours. I was without power for a week once, and it was just after my husband had disconnected the gas fire so me and the kids were freezing. I think we sat on the sofa under a duvet for the duration. What added insult to injury was that one half of the village got their power back but we were still in darkness. After a few days the rest of the county seemed to be back to normal and we felt as if the whole world had forgotten us. The power came back on just as my husband had managed to borrow a paraffin heater from someone. I’ve never eaten mint ice cream since that week as I had a load of it in the freezer and we had to eat it all up. It’s awful not being able to have a cup of tea when you want one.

Most definitely not prepared! I realised that after the last storm when we had a few power cuts. I couldn't find a torch and my battery operated candles had run down. It's definitely something I need to sort out.