I followed my own advice a few weeks ago and bought a torch and a few cans of baked beans, put a battery in the radio and – what was the other thing?
Ah yes, picked up a Teach-Yourself-Russian primer.
But it’s funny how things turn out.
I was in Kraichgau in Germany this Monday, riding an e-bike along a quiet country lane when the mobile phone went off in the Karrimor – a kind of bicycle side-pack.
These calls – no one I know ever phones me – are usually from one of those scam outfits that either want to sell you something you never realised that you could do without, or worse still, a complete hollow silence from the caller: probably cleaning out your bank account details as you wonder whether to say ‘Yeah?’ or just hang up.
I block ’em when I get ’em, but if I’m doing something else, then I don’t bother to answer.
Who does these days – if someone knows you, they send a message or make a call on WhatsApp.
Pedalling away with Lotte just in front of me, i hear that my mobile is insistently trilling once again.
'Hold on', I call to her.
Long story short, it’s my neighbour in Spain, a slightly dim-witted fellow called Paco. Salt of the earth, but not always fully up to speed.
‘The power is out’, he said.
‘Well there’s fu-’…
‘And in your house too’.
Shit, did I give him a key?
‘Can you call Endesa, the electric company?’ he’s saying.
‘Paco, I’m riding an e-bike, and it’s still going strong, so I reckon I've got more than enough electricity. You call them’.
I get a message some time later, laboriously written by Paco, which says (roughly) ‘there’s no electric on the beach either’.
Lotte has dismounted and is scrolling her phone. ‘It looks like the whole of Spain is out’, she says.
‘Pity the poor buggers trapped in a lift’ I say as we pedal on towards the biergarten.