A spider made me late for work!

Yes really!
It wasn't just some feeble excuse, it was true.

One morning this week we woke up late because the power had gone off in the house, stopping the alarm clock from waking us up. At first we thought it was a power cut. Then I discovered that it was something to do with the pond electrics.

After much faffing around switching off the various pumps, and other devices, and disconnecting the armoured cable at the pond end, then the garage end, I eventually traced the problem back to the short length of mains cable going from the wall plug, to the start of the armoured cable. Eh? How can that be, I thought.

When eventually I opened up the plug I discovered that a spider had crept inside the opening at the bottom of the plug, up into the fuse area, and must have bridged the gap between the Live and the Earth connections, and FIZZLE, BANG!!! One dead, exploded spider!

The trouble was that its mortal remains were still causing a connection across the terminals, that were sufficient to trip the RCD device. Finally I cleaned out the plug and power was restored without tripping the electrics off every time.

How bizarre!