An Unexpected Candle Lit Dinner

Last night Papicito gazed out of the window at the lawn and commented that the garden could do with watering, but he never got around to it.

Just before Chiquitito's bedtime the skies grew rapidly black and it started to rain. The smell of fresh rain on the dry earth gave off a gorgoeus smell, and as the rain quickened the storm gathered pace with louds rumbles of thunder and huge flashes of lightening.

We went and stood on the under cover terrace to watch the storm when the biggest crack of thunder went off right over head at the same time as an enormous flash of light. Everything went silent, and we turned around to see that the electricity had gone off.

The daylight was quickly fading into night so Papi went to check that it wasn't just us and to get our supply of candles from the garage, whilst there was still enough light to find things. Usually the power doesn't stay off for long, but we wanted to be prepared.

Chiquitito was tired and didn't put up an argument about bedtime, even though the power cut had upset his routine. His room is the smallest of our three bedrooms, and without his fan on it gets unbearably hot, so we put him to bed in our room with the windows open and the tiniest of breezes.

We lit our citronella candles, to ward off mosquitos, and sat on the terrace with a pre-dinner drink, watching the storm rumbling on. The inside of the house was an uncomfortable temperature, whilst outside was perfect.

Still no electric.

Luckily, I had baked a quiche the day before so Papi was able to prepare dinner by candlelight (the two candles in the kitchen were far superior to any of the others we have and I will definitely be buying some more of them!)

We ate outside - with the glow from the candles supplemented by the bright lightening. The lightening flashes were so frequent that I made Papi venture out into the wet to make sure there was nothing on fire in next door's garden!

Two hours after the power went off it came back - to the sound of cheers from us and our neighbours.

But do you know - it was so romantic sat outside drinking vodka and coke by candlelight that we didn't come back in for quite a while.