The power went out just after nine. I think the internet waited until bedtime last time.
No warning. No flicker. Just a soft click (you know the click if you live in Spain) and suddenly the house felt different, like someone had quietly removed the background hum of modern life.
I was halfway through washing up. Plate in one hand, sponge in the other, wondering whether I’d already used too much washing-up liquid again. Carmen looked up from the table and said, “Ah. That’ll be the transformer again.”
She said it like someone commenting on the weather.
I stood there waiting for the lights to come back. London brain. In London a power cut means panic, tweets, engineers in reflective jackets. Here, nothing happened.
The village just… adjusted.
Through the open window I could hear voices drifting up the street. Doors opening. Someone laughing. A dog barking like it had finally been given a job.
Carmen lit a candle without getting up. I asked how long it would be.
“Maybe ten minutes,” she said.
“Maybe an hour.”
Helpful.
So we gave up on the washing up and stepped outside.
The street looked different in candlelight and moonlight. Softer. Less like a place people live and more like a painting someone forgot to finish. A few neighbours had already wandered out. Antonio was leaning against his wall with a beer, clearly delighted by the situation.
“Luz?” he asked.
I nodded like I understood everything about rural electricity infrastructure.
Within five minutes half the street was outside. Someone brought out a chair. Someone else had a bottle of something suspiciously strong that appeared from nowhere. The whole place turned into a tiny night-time gathering.
Funny thing is, when I first arrived here I struggled with the silence. Proper struggled. Sundays especially used to drive me slightly mad, the kind of quiet where you can hear your own thoughts echoing around the kitchen. I wrote about that once about my Sundays and how strange it felt coming from London.
Turns out the village isn’t always quiet.
Sometimes it just waits for the electricity to disappear.
Antonio started telling a story about the time the power went out during a wedding dinner. I didn’t catch all of it, but it involved a generator, three cousins, and a goat that apparently ate part of the cake. Carmen translated bits for me while laughing.
At one point someone passed me a glass of something clear and very unfriendly. I took a sip and immediately understood why Spanish people drink slowly.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
No one seemed bothered.
A couple walked past with a torch, like they were strolling through a festival rather than a blackout. The stars above the village looked ridiculous without streetlights. Proper sky, the kind you forget exists when you live in a city.
Eventually Carmen nudged me.
“See,” she said. “Good problem.”
I asked what she meant.
“No electricity,” she said, gesturing down the street. “But now everyone talks.”
She had a point.
Back in Wimbledon the lights could stay on all night and I wouldn’t know the name of the person living two metres away on the other side of a wall. Here the grid fails and suddenly you’re sharing homemade liquor with a man who once fixed your roof using what looked suspiciously like a frying pan.
About forty minutes later the lights came back.
No cheer, no applause. Just that soft electrical hum returning, like the village had been plugged back into the world.
People drifted inside.
Doors closed.
Street quiet again.
I went back to the sink, finished the washing up, and noticed something odd.
The house didn’t feel as silent as it used to.