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On Saturday, May 21, at around 3:45 PM, I was listening to Shelagh Rogers' The Next Chapter when the show was interrupted by an announcement of a severe thunderstorm warning. The announcement had barely ended when the power went out, not to return until the wee hours of the morning of Monday, May 30. Thus began the Great Derecho of 2022.

So how did we deal with it all, you might well ask?

All in all, it could have been worse.

For one thing, it struck in May, a time of year that was neither so cold that we needed the heat on, nor so hot that we were left sweltering without fans or air conditioning. We had fairly long hours of daylight and a supply of flashlights for after hours.

We boiled the kettle and cooked food on the backyard barbecue. We procured ice when we could, and kept most of our food adequately cold in the fridge, the freezer and a picnic cooler. I dug out an old fondue pot (fuelled by tea-light candles) to heat up canned stuff indoors. We're vegetarians (although not vegans), so that helped.

My partner was able to use the computer with a hotspot, but I was unable to use it with my newer laptop. We charged cell phones and other devices through our solar panels.

I own a portable device that houses a radio, CD player and cassette player and can be used with batteries when we don't have power. I also have a portable DVD player and we watched the movie version of Cats on one of the days.

What we missed the most was having hot water for showers and laundry. We're on time-of-use rates with Hydro Ottawa and the cheapest rates are in the evenings (or overnight if you're a night-owl) and all day on weekends and holidays. I'd been planning to take advantage of the Victoria Day weekend to do some serious laundry, including a few blankets now that the weather is getting warmer. I did manage to bake muffins on the Saturday morning and we had a dishwasher load in progress when the power went out.

Initially, the hydro folks were saying that the vast majority of customers would have their power back by the end of the day Friday. So we figured, OK so we'll have next weekend at least. But in the end, we went through another entire weekend without power. In fact, it's the longest we've ever gone without power in the 40+ years we've lived here: more than twice as long as with the ice storm of 1998 or the tornado of 2018.

We learned a few lessons, I guess. My partner ordered an inverter and an ice-cube maker and a couple of headlamps. We put together a little emergencies kit. Ever since the pandemic hit, we've been doing bigger (though less frequent) grocery trips so we always have a sizeable stock of nonperishable food on hand. We decided we don't especially want to order gas-powered generators as many are apparently clamouring to do. And realistically I don't think we'll ever be totally off-grid .

Still, perhaps we'll be somewhat better prepared when the next extreme weather event strikes.

Today was another grocery shopping day. We bravely got up for seniors' shopping hour, despite having only slept in fits and starts, what with two or three waves of thunderstorms last night.

Remarkably, there was no apparent property damage when we got up and our garbage and recycling bins that we put out yesterday were still sitting calmly by the curb, waiting to be emptied. We didn't lose power overnight either. On the political front, the news was not so good - I'm crossing my fingers that maybe when the next election rolls around, folks who would normally vote Conservative but do not hold particularly conservative social values will consider moving towards the Liberals. Unfortunately I don't feel the NDP have a particularly good leader at the moment. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that the parties will work together on some of the critical issues that transcend party affiliation.

Grocery stores don't seem to be as busy these days and the shelves are a little better stocked. Flour was no problem today. But I still couldn't get tapioca (which we use mainly as a thickening agent in pies), the cauli-crumble we like or full-sheet paper towels. The lettuce still didn't look great, but I got some that looked OK; on the plus side, a number of the things we needed were on special. I stocked up on canned beans, soups, crackers, coffee and orange juice. I also found some Ontario nectarines, which were excellent.

They've started charging for plastic bags again, but they still aren't allowed to help you load your own re-usable bags and they still ask that there be only one shopper to a household. Add to that the fact that we're now trying to do two weeks' worth of shopping at a time and it generally means that since I'm on my own at the cash, the cashier is usually ringing things in faster than I can load everything on to the conveyor belt, let alone pack it (and they often have two employees on a checkout lane: one to ring things in and the other to pack them). It's great that they're so efficient and I did manage to pack a few things myself.

Anyway, after getting the grocery shopping done, we thought we'd detour up to the Shouldice stand on Prince of Wales for strawberries and corn on the cob... except it was too early for them to be open. We did go back a little later, though and managed to get what we wanted. Then I baked cake, then it was time to watch physically distanced Coronation Street...

So life goes on. We're not really hurting from the "new normal", it's just that everything is so much more convoluted and time-consuming than before. And some of the things we'd like to be doing are still not possible, even at this stage of re-opening. But it could be worse...