MONDAY BLEWS

So, Monday morning began in the darkness, and not only because the sun hadn't yet risen.

I got up, in that slightly unhappy state that a Monday morning can drag along with it, and headed downstairs to have my morning cup of tea and pills, made a couple of ultimately disappointing sandwiches for my lunch later on, carried my mug of tea through into the living room and flicked the light-switch...

Only for the bulb to immediately blow in a rather spectacular way and leave me standing in the pitch darkness with a mug of tea in my hand and nothing but the flashing digits of the ancient video recorder and the taunting glow of the internet hub to light my way.

Actually, I don't know why I said it was "spectacular" really, because it certainly wasn't, at least in the "Hollywood Special Effects" sense. It merely fizzed and spluttered and strobed a little before going "plink". There was no explosion, no sparks, and no shattering of glass, and I certainly didn't have to leap for cover in super slo-mo as a hot rain of both tea and glass shards showered about me in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

In fact the only reaction from me was rather static with only muted "Typical!" to mark the transition of states of being from optimistic anticipation of a nice warm cuppa to a person who was now mildly irritated at having something else to deal with.

Typically I hadn't the foggiest whether I even had any spare bulbs in the house, and there certainly weren't any in the usual spot because I'd changed the last one only a fortnight ago and made a mental note that I really needed to pick up some more before forgetting that I'd made that mental note, or subconsciously scrunching it up or, if it was a mental "Post-It" note (other self adhesive message pads are available) having it lose its tackiness and fall down the side of the fridge.

Luckily, I vaguely remembered that there were some more somewhere that I thought that I hadn't used yet, and I was right. In the damp, dark, condensation heavy places under the sink, where I seldom venture because of the general unpleasantness therein,  I found an aging plastic box of old electrical bits and pieces including a multi-pack of bulbs which I'd once bought in Asda, the cardboard boxes of which all seemed ever-so slightly soggy. Most of those seemed to be marked with the environmentally wicked "100W" but one damp old box still claimed to be 60W and so I grabbed it and, as the cardboard disintegrated around it, I found that I held in my hand one slightly wet lightbulb.

Well, I quickly dried this on a handy towel and manoeuvered a chair to the necessary spot and replaced the bulb by the light of a small lamp and a dazzling torch and, having negotiated my way back to the floor, was happily rewarded by the bright light of a bulb that was certainly far brighter than the one it was replacing, and probably was not of the type as once claimed by the remains of the box it was so recently inside.

Still, any week which starts out with you standing on a chair in the dark trying to put a damp bulb into a light socket can't help but improve… although how those first few moments are is possibly symbolic of how the entire week is likely to unravel, so I didn't take it as a good sign.

Perhaps ironically, or presciently, on Sunday afternoon I had ordered myself a new torch off the internet but, naturally, it hadn't actually arrived yet. This sudden consumerist leap was made because we'd bought a rather impressive one a couple of years ago for the beloved to carry about with her in her work bag for those rare occasions when she has to get herself home in the midwinter pitch darknesses.

After our recent blackouts, and the feeble failure of the cheap and nasty little torch which I usually kept in the car that evening, in comparison to the bright and steady beam which the Beloved's own rather marvellous light source had displayed during that minor crisis, I'd been thinking of getting myself one, only to not be able to find any on sale in the various supermarkets we'd been into since whilst failing to buy any bulbs.

In the end, as is often the case, the internet was my friend although, the one time this week that I might actually have been urgently needing it, whilst standing on that chair in the dark, it was still in a depot somewhere awaiting despatch, but next time, next time, I shall be, in the best tradition of Baden-Powell's finest, prepared...

Assuming I can find the thing, of course... because, some days, some days, the lights of my life really do seem to conspire against me...