On Thursday Morning Doctor
Stuart Cameron was just slipping his coat on in preparation of leaving for
work, Deborah was still in her dressing gown as she wasn’t going in until seven
that evening as she was working the night shift.
“Hold on” she said and pinned
a badge on his lapel before taking a step back
“That’s better”
As it was St Andrew’s Day and
Stuart was a Scot she had ordered the badge for him.
It was a shield bearing the
Saltire, with a Tam o' Shanter on
one corner, St Andrew’s Day emblazoned across the middle with November
30th underneath.
“Thank you” he said and
kissed her cheek
“You’re welcome” she replied
“I’ll see you tomorrow” he
said and opened the door and shivered as he stepped outside and as he started
the engine light snow began to fall.
At roughly the same time up
at High Cliff Molly and Danny had started going through the Christmas
Decorations and they got George to help put up the outdoor decorations, because
Danny didn’t have a head for heights, hanging the garlands was as much height
as he could manage even then he let Molly stand on the steps and he handed her
the decorations.
December
On Friday morning
when Deborah Woodward returned to Manor Row at the end of her nightshift, it
was snowing, and Stuart was just leaving the house to start his day, and they
met on the path.
“Go steady
Stuart, the roads are treacherous”
“I will” he said,
“Are you on again tonight?”
“I’m afraid so”
Deborah replied
“Ok I probably
won’t see you until the morning then” Stuart said
“Bye”
The snow was
falling steadily as she watched Stuart drive away and she shivered, then she
opened the door and went inside because her bed was calling to her.
She wasn’t due
back at the Bellevue until 7 o’clock in the evening, after a much-needed sleep,
a hot shower and something hot to eat.
However that
didn’t come to pass as she was woken just after 3pm by a call from the
Hospital, asking her to come in early as some of the staff were stranded on the
mainland.
So she got up and
had a quick shower, a slice of toast and after looking out and seeing how much
worse the snow had got, togged herself up for the walk to the hospital.
The wind had freshened and the heavy snowfall of earlier had
abated slightly but with the strong wind it had soon turned into a blizzard
when Stuart got home just after six o’clock.
Once he was inside, he was surprised to find the house empty, he
was hoping to share half an hour with the jovial Doctor, with her infectious laugh, pretty smile, and of course the
divine smell of the freshly showered, perfumed and powdered doctor.
When he went into
the kitchen, he found a note on the table
“Called in early,
see you tomorrow x”
He was about halfway through one of his favourite movies, “The
Shape of Water”, when around 10 o'clock the lights went out.
“Oh bugger” he exclaimed
He got up and walked over to the window and pushed the curtain to
one side and he could see that all the other houses in Manor Row were in
darkness.
He knew it must be a power outage, though he didn't know why or
how extensive it was, he certainly wasn’t going outside to investigate.
If he had ventured out, he would have discovered that the blackout
covered the whole of Beaumont Island due to a problem on the mainland resulting
from a fallen tree.
He was planning on having an early night as he wanted to be up and
dressed for when Deborah got home, so after laying a fire in the grate he went
off to bed.
The next morning he was up at five thirty, and the power was
still off, however the weather had calmed down, but there were still light snow
showers, so the first thing he did was to light the fire in the grate.
There was no mains gas on the island, so properties had either oil
fired, LPG or electric boilers, in Manor Row they were all electric, which
meant the only means of heating water in the house when the power was out was
by using the open fire and the back boiler, but that didn't feed the radiators,
so he kept all the curtains drawn and the doors closed to retain as much heat
as possible and dressed warmly and planned a duvet day on the sofa.
Making hot drinks was problematic, without the electric cooker and
the kettle so he had to boil water in a camping kettle over the open fire.
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