The light of my life
Time is playing tricks on me again.
I could have sworn we were somewhere in November but apparently not.
Christmas is sneaking up on me very quickly this year and this time three weeks it will all be over bar the shouting. I’m not sorry. I think the reason I am so unaware of Christmas is my nimble fingers on the television mute button. So far I haven’t heard a single jingly tacky tune and I intend to keep it that way.
Even better, the Winter Solstice is a mere fortnight away and that pleases me immensely. I’m sitting here with all the lights on but it’s still only just after two.
I’m actually a bit pissed off with the lights here. I have those little bulbs that are recessed into the ceiling and they give me nothing but trouble. The ones upstairs have always been a bit dodgy but the sets here in the extension are now giving me a pain in the hole.
There are three circuits. There’s one set in the seating area and two separate sets in the kitchen. The bulb over the kitchen sink failed recently so I went through the rigmarole of testing various bulbs in it. Nothing. I decided it was the transformer. I didn’t realise each bulb had its own transformer but Google enlightened me. I pondered the problem and decided to test my theory by ripping a transformer from the other kitchen set. It worked!
I duly sent off for a replacement transformer to replace the one I had robbed. It took a while to make its way through the system, and before it arrived I realised something – another fucking light had failed. SHIT!
I couldn’t be bothered to try to mess around any more. Working an a step ladder playing around with horrible little spring clips just over my head gives me a literal pain in the neck. I’ll leave them for another time for when I could give a shit.
Or maybe I’ll try to find an electrician……..
I have the same issues with the recessed lighting in our kitchen. Up the step stool, remove the three small screws that hold the globe in place and out comes the bulb. (By then I need to get down until the room stops spinning.) Then reverse the process. Of course, the Mrs. reminding me to be careful and don’t fall.
(Thank you dear, I never would have thought of that myself.)
I wouldn’t mind screws [apart from losing them]. It’s the damned clips that piss me off.
But YOU Grandad, your good self, are an engineer of some sort or another. Why would you even consider paying someone else, a mere ‘leckie, to fuck something up when you can fuck it up just as good for free?
I am being flippant, but behind this is my deep despair in the fall of what was a society wide can-do attitude to one of “oooh – you’ll need a proper person to do that” and the sheer pathetic inability of almost anyone to do basic stuff.
I worked for many years in a firm composed of about 100 electronics type engineers, and just a few support staff. The number of times I saw a “to everyone” email asking if anyone knew of a plumber who could change a tap washer or somesuch…
I don’t lack the knowledge and could easily fix them in theory. It’s the practical side – the working over my head and getting a pain in the neck that bothers me. Let someone else have the pain and suffering.
The low power lamps with transformers seem to have been a passing thing.
Now all the fancy electronics is crammed into the actual bulb screw or bayonet base which uses the old, incandescent, pre we-gotta-save-the-planet fixings which take the raw 230 ish volts, 50 or 60 Hertz mains. Magic.
The actual lamps / bulbs are now very cheap and lots of choice, if you shop about. And they last yonks. So maybe instead of farting about with hard to find, and probably expensive transformers and the special bulbs they use, get cheaper old fashioned fittings and connect them directly to the 240 or 230 volts ac just like those old fittings of yore.
Safety precautions will be just the same as for changing the transformer.
The spring clips holding the fitting in the ceiling hole will still get your fingers like an old fashioned mouse trap. I know.
G10 is the fittings you’re looking for.
To give them their full technical title: GU5.3/MR16. G10 looks the same but has different solid pins. I have one of those in the front room.
there is always candles
. . . . as the Mother Superior would often advise.
😀
Two nuns in a bath. One has hope in her soul…..
Same two nuns in the bath. One says “Where’s the soap?”, the other one replies “Yes it does, doesn’t it”.
“Grandad tried to mend the electric light.
It struck him dead and serve him right.
It is the business of the wealthy man,
To give employment to the artisan.”
(With apologies to Hilaire Belloc)
I could have issues with the words “dead” and “wealthy” but you have just about summed it up.