Arrival

By: Elaine Lutton

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2 Spinnaker Drive, Sandstone Point hometownaustralia.com.au

CLOCK Setting

The other day, I received a friendly postcard from Energex, telling me that they intended to cut off my electricity on the 12th of October, between the hours of 8:00 am and 11:00 am. How nice of them to inform me of this minor inconvenience, though if I was in charge of their Public Relations, I might suggest a peaceful scenic picture or even the smiling faces of their yellow-vested tradies, rather than the alarming orange and red shout, POWER OUTAGE. On turning the postcard over to read their greetings, or perhaps an apology for any inconvenience caused, we were merely given instructions on how to deal with this “necessary maintenance of the electricity network”. Social distancing and dog warnings, clearing the fuse box, all sensible suggestions were mentioned, but I did take exception to the advice that I should “refrain from nonessential interaction with our staff on-site”. What exactly did this mean? No cheery waves or greetings; no offers of cups of tea; no observations about the weather? Must we fail to acknowledge their presence in any way, lest we distract them from their duty? I had plenty to do that did not require power, eat chocolate, then an apple to neutralise the evil of the chocolate, shower, listen to the birds, and make vital decisions as to what to wear, not that I was going

anywhere as although my berage doors will open and can be closed manually if I returned before the witching hour of power renewal, Ferrari and I would have to remain outside, cooling our wheels, until such time as my remote would open the doors of Home, Sweet Home! Busy, busy, busy! Then PING! power restored. But the drama had just begun. Now I had to venture into the kitchen and set the clocks on both my Microwave Oven and Stove. At least I had the Manual for the Microwave, so it only took me a mere sixty minutes to successfully perform this task. For any normal person of average intelligence, this would take less than five minutes, even allowing for errors, but I suffer from a medical condition that causes what I refer to as my “finger stutters”. Not surprisingly, I felt inordinately pleased with this victory over the odds, rewarding myself with yet more chocolate, again counteracting this evil by eating yet another apple. I have a lot of sympathy for Eve, I feel she has received totally undeserved Bad Press! After this hour of frustration, I still had to tackle the clock setting on my ancient but perfectly functioning electric stove. I no longer have the manual for this; it has proceeded its servant and already “Gone to God”. You might quite reasonably question why it was necessary to set yet another clock in my kitchen. Here we encounter a peculiar eccentricity of this appliance. Although the hot plates function perfectly so long as the power is on, the fan-forced oven refuses to cooperate unless the clock is set. No matter what I did, I could not revert to the clock setting mode. As a result of my pressing buttons at random, my poor stove had a complete nervous breakdown, signalling its distress by lights flashing everywhere. Nothing for it but to Google “Destructions”, as my father would say. This I did, but I was asked for the Make and Model. Make I could supply, but Model? I searched everywhere, in the oven, the grill, both doors, illuminating interiors with a torch, all to no avail. On the point of giving up, I noticed on the white enamel exterior, writ in large numerals, 558. Could this be a CLUE? Sherlock Googled this, and after following several blind alleys, finally reached the answer to the question as follows: Press the mode button 4 times until you see a blinking clock. While it is still blinking, use the + or – buttons to adjust the time up or down. Lesser persons than myself might still be mystified, I had lots of blinking lights still showing, but then I had a flash of pure brilliance! I needed to clear the stove of all my previous attempts and start from scratch by cutting off power to the stove so that it might rest and recover its wits. But the stove cannot be moved, at least by me, so it would not be as simple as turning off a power-point, supposing one existed. There was only one course of action! Out went this intrepid explorer in her slippers to the fuse box outside and gazed into its innards as if she knew what she was about! I seemed to remember being told by my late, lamented, husband that there was a separate fuse for the stove. He had not lied! There, amongst the multitude of fuses, was one faintly labelled “Stove”. I switched it off, pulled it out, examined it, pushed it back, and switched it on. Back I paddled to the kitchen, mercifully unfried, and noted that most of the lights had ceased to blink. I began to press the mode button the required four times whilst muttering any abracadabra-type incantations that I thought might help. Magically, the stove went into the correct mode, and I was able to set the clock. Would the oven heat up, enabling me to cook my already-prepared casserole? With trepidation did I turn the oven dial, praying for success? YES, YES, YES,

VICTORY!

Suncare Boronia Cottage