Just in time, the electrician arrived

Dig is back from Scandinavia for 24 hours before pushing off to the Middle East. Just enough time to slump to his hands and knees on the kitchen floor and stick his head under the sink.

I'd like to boast this is an intriguing new sexual position we'd like to try out before reaching for the cocoa, slippers and mop for the dribble, but it isn't. It's because we have had a total electric ring main circuit failure. The boiler, plus all the appliances, have switched themselves off. Every time we go up the ladder to push the trip switch back to ON it won't go and stays firmly OFF.

Now it's been nearly 24 hours. I am frozen and my broad beans have defrosted. As has the filo pastry, emergency bread and fish fingers which I do not know why I bought because the children refuse to eat them. Actually, I do know why I brought them. They were reduced to 50p in the Co-op after their freezer broke down, so I thought that buying them was an act of charity to help the Co-op get back on its feet.

Getting back on one's feet is something that takes Dig quite a while. Because he discovers that under the sink there is a socket which doesn't do anything. Dig then finds it's full of water. Apparently, pouring water into it from the back of the sink doesn't do it any good at all. 'Why is it there?' I ask naively. 'Should something be plugged into it?' 'No' says Dig. 'And it's there because we couldn't find a junction box'.

Well now it's sorted. Just as well, because Dig's off tomorrow. And apart from a message of good timing, the moral here is that bodging something in haste will come back to haunt you, bringing you no heating and a defrosted bowl of spinach soup that didn't seem too appetising the first time round, and is certainly no better the second.

And after a day of electrical wiring, no more plug and socketry work, sadly, was done.