So started four days of no electricity, and water shortages, here in the SW of France, and once again proving how different this region is from other parts of France. By 8 o'clock we were in the midst of winds ripping through the valley, tearing branches off the trees and tiles of the roof, the rain lashing down, and a river running down our road a foot deep.
So what to do? well being British old chap we put the kettle on, lit the wood burning stove, sat around the fire, drinking our tea and discussing our situation, and prioritised our needs,
1 Plenty of Wine, Beer
2 Plenty of food in the Freezer, Problem 1 No electricity, so check the Insurance , but would rather have our own homegrown that we had spent so much time on growing and freezing down.
3 Plenty of wood for the fire.
We had been warned by the neighbours that it would be bad storm but they tell us that they were surprised by the winds and and the how long it lasted for we sat all day in the house watching the wind taking garden chairs, dust bins in fact anything not nailed down of to the great unknown never to be seen again.
The 2 dogs spent the day with our 2 cats under the table where they stayed until we threw them out for a half an hour for the call of nature, which two resisted until they came back in,
By 5 o'clock we still had no electricity and we are sat in candle light, decided to visit our neighbours to make sure they were OK, and taking a few candles with us, as by then I had a nasty feeling that this was not quite normal as the wind was still howling around and did not seem to be slacking off at all, we arrived at their house to find them sitting in the light of the open fire eating their evening meal. After ensuring they were OK and finding that they had contact with their family, ( their telephone was the old type plugged into the telephone direct ) whereas we needed electricity to use ours) so much for progress ?
We returned home and after a few glass's of this and some of that, and we went to bed, until at 2 o'clock I got up to put the dogs to bed in the cellar
Saturday morning we still have no electricity, so now we start to worry about the three freezers in the cave and decide to try and save as much as we can by conserving into jars, but we knew that we would lose most of our veggies but felt it best to save the pork and lamb we have from our neighbours and our own chooks and rabbits.
At 10 o'clock three vans pull into the yard and 6 lads some of whom we knew, plus the Maire, jumped out "Is everything OK, no damage or injuries" "we are ok " we replied , and he explained that the water company, had tried to phone their customers that the EDF the electric company had advised them that it would take 4 or 5 days to sort out the problems and that that the water pumps at the water relay stations may not be working so for us to stock up with water, he then handed out Candles and asked if we had freezers as he knew we did a lot of conserving, when we explained our situation, he explained that the Maire was collecting all the freezers and and would keep them in the in the offices as they had power there.
With that the men picked up the freezers and disappeared, closely followed by the Maire, and all this had taken all of 5 minutes.
For the next 2 days we had Rain, Sun, so spent our time cleaning up the mess in the garden repairing bits of damage here and there, Sampling the wine that we made last year sitting in front of the fire reading, sampling more wine, no TV no Radio no lights, except candles, no hot water, just like like the old days, and so we made through the week until about 9 o'clock on Tuesday evening we had electricity.
Wednesday afternoon we recieved a phone call telling us that they would return our freezers in the morning, and at 10 o'clock they arrived. This afterenoon we dropped into the office to thank everyone, for their help and kindness and were told ,
C'est Normal
They deserve a medal for that. 
(thanks)