It was getting towards midnight on Tuesday and I was downloading and installing some software from Canon for my camera when we had a series of mini power cuts - off...on.off.on.off...on.
When the power came back and was stabe I had none at the wall sockets as the trips had gone. That's how it should be, so I reset them. Then I had no power through the surge protector for all my computer stuff , so that got reset as well. Then came the problems..... The laptop kept cycling through booting up, the external keyboard and mouse would not work and the lappy keyboard had reconfigured itself to some sort of Cryllic Arabic hybrid.
It took the purchase of some gear, and a few tips from the guys at the local laptop repair centre, to get things working again. Oh, and a lot of screaming and hair pulling from me.