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319when the heater was on, but I connected it to a drain which dripped into a bucket in the barn for the garden. The electrics were also different in that they did not use ring mains but rather a series of spurs. There was a limit on the number of plugs on a spur and so there was a large fuse box. However, that came much later when I lived there in 2001. Until then we just used what was there with cable tacked to the walls.The first summer we owned the place I planned to go down there with Alex and her friend Jo. Unfortunately, Gabby did not have enough holiday left. However, I went down alone for a week or so prior to that to put in the hot water system and I think to build a shower. I just fixed plasterboard around a wooden frame and then tiled it. I am not sure whether I used a standard shower tray or cast one out of concrete and then tiled it. The problem was that although the floor was solid it was anything but level. We had a camping stove to cook with and I took an old small fridge that my mother gave us. So, our holiday there was quite comfortable.The first night with Alex was quite exciting. There was a huge thunderstorm with lightening flashing all around. It was the first one I experienced there but not the last. Lying in bed I heard a great crash and the electricity wires above my head caught fire. The wires were just strung along a beam and were very old. The fire quickly went out, but it was a shock. I was worried about the girls in the caravan out in the field but I thought that they should be safe there and so they were. On one of the big storms we had, three cows who had taken shelter under a tree were killed when it was struck by lightning. While Alex and Jo were there,we went to the first of several %u201cevents%u201d in Cerilly. Each village put on some sort of a show during the summer. This was often paid for with a big car boot sale. I think that the first one was a rodeo. The participants raced round a field on horses standing up, rolling underneath and so on. At one point they put out some bales of straw, set fire to them and then