Trying to buy a 60 or 100 watt light bulb here is not easy. They can’t be had at the grocery store where we do most of our shopping. The hardware shop sells them but that’s an added trip. So we make do with the 40 watt, longer lasting bulbs that wouldn’t light a pathway on a black as coal night.
Having one at the bedside to read by is next to useless.
When I go to turn on the bedroom lights at about 4pm in the afternoon I put on hub’s and the weak glimmer doesn’t even show on the wall it is facing. I have to wait for it to warm up before it reaches its 40 watt, maximum capacity, glow!
I’ve never heard of such a thing!
Our bathroom lights are the same. They are above the mirror over the sink and when we pull the light cord…in England it is illegal to have light switches in bathrooms… it takes a long time for the ballast to kick in.
We thought ours was broken because of the length of time it took to click on, so went to an electrical shop in an attempt to replace ours. We drew blank expressions!
“The thing that makes lights burst into brightness?” hubs prompted. Now he knows how I feel in America trying to come up with other English words to get across my meaning.
“Oh, you mean the starter?” except they don’t pronounce their “t’s” here so it comes out, “star-er.”
In the end, because we were told we would have to buy a whole new light fixture in this, Disposable Age, we called in Home Care whom we pay money to so that we can get all kinds of things in our home repaired.
This was when we found out two things, it is advantageous to be old, and it wasn’t the starter.
First off they couldn’t come out for a month or more…unless we had an eighty year old or older living with us! The prospect of having to do all our bathroomly stuff for a month in the dark made us consider fibbing!
Somehow hubs sweet talked them with his America accent and high expectations and we got a man out the next day.
When he arrived he immediately diagnosed the problem as being with the hanging pull switch inside the bathroom door, not the starter.
Easily repaired but in the process we found that the switch was not grounded. That sounded dangerous to me.
According to our British service man although the original work showed signs of short cutting, it scraped passed the safety code…just!
With the poor quality of illumination in my flat each mirror yields a different reflection.
I think candle light may be kinder and brighter!
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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