Strange lights in the sky
Merciful hour but I’m glad that’s over!
I don’t mind Christmas itself – it’s the frantic sell sell sell and the false jollity beforehand that gets me. In fact the day itself was lovely and peaceful here, with just the two of us and the two animals. Just how the day should be.
Being a creature of habit and tradition, I decorated the house on Christmas Eve and I leave it all up for the twelve days. That tradition was beaten into me by a staunchly traditional mother. So today the whole lot has come down. Not that there was much to take down, but it’s all boxed and put back in its usual place at the back of the spare room.
Except for the lights.
I got a string of lights last year – 100 of ’em and operated by battery. Last year I strung ’em up the stairs in the sitting room and buried them in holly and ivy. Very effective. The lights have several options and styles of flashing, but I just left them shining steadily with none of that modern fancy shit.
This year I realised that to stick those lights up the stairs would be a disaster as I just knew the Cat would have a go at them. Unfortunately there is enough current in the wires to electrocute the little fucker so unless I just wanted a chewed up string of dead lights, I realised I would have to stick them somewhere else.
I stuck them up around over the window where I normally sit. Even little Cunt Cat can’t reach them there? They are a very long string but they only just made it [it’s quite a large window!]. They looked lovely. In fact they looked so lovely I have decided to leave them there. It’s a bit of a local thing anyway as the people in the village couldn’t be arsed with all the fuss of taking the village decorations down and putting ’em back up again so they just leave them there all year round. If nothing else, it amuses the tourists.
The only thing I don’t understand is how my string of lights work.
They are up there now in front of me but I can hardly see them as they aren’t lit. Later, as dusk settles, they will indeed light up, but by the time I go to bed they’ll be off again. How do they know? I haven’t touched them in the last twelve days but they are as regular as clockwork. It can’t be a photo-sensitive thing otherwise they would stay lit until dawn. It can’t be a timer thing because there isn’t one. Weird.
Just another little aspect of life to confuse me.
Photosensitive-on, battery runs out, off?
That was my first [and only] thought. I switched them on with new batteries on the day I put them up. I forgot to switch them off that night so the next day when I discovered they were off, I searched for some photosensitive device. There isn’t one. I replaced the batteries on the assumption that the batteries were dud [only one night on a string of LEDs?] and forgot about them. Since then they have religiously come on at dusk and switched off again late evening [near midnight], all automatically.
There is of course, I’m sure, an EU Directive that regulates- for the sake of carbon emissions, the dolphins and The Cheeldren, the exact length of time approved Festive Holiday Lights are allowed to illuminate. Ahhh the glorious Freedom an IREXIT might bring – a true born Irishman shall be able to illuminate his property in garish colours all year round….makes one giddy to think about.
They are switched so that they will be on for six hours, then off for 18 hours.
Simple, really.
😉
RUBBISH! It’s all down to ley lines I tell you!
Is the battery box translucent? There might be a photosensitive device within it which detects when the room lights are turned off at bedtime.
Do you have a central intelligence agency around there?
Have you asked the cat?
It’s magic….the same sort of thing that makes your car run when any one who knows anything about cars will tell you that there is no way those thousands of moving parts …..
I am very sad to say that I found the solution. Indeed, Claudia was right and it does the 6/18 hour trick automatically. I am gutted as I would have loved it to be ley lines or even the cat.
Life can be so mundane at times.
Yep, my first thought when I bought one of these “fairy light” thingies also was ley lines. Or indeed the fairies, sneaking in from the garden. But is electrick-trick not fair(l)y magical in its own right? Clap your hands if you believe in fairies … or electrick-trick. Clap, clap … 😉
How many batteries are you using to produce enough voltage to electrocute a cat? 🙁