Country Darkness

One thing that I don’t think either of us had really thought about when we moved to the new house was night-time (and, by extension, winter – when it’s night for a lot longer!) and how to deal with it. Over the last seven years, we’d both been in large towns or cities, and had got used to that perma-glow of street lighting. Out here, well, there’s just not as much illumination.

I should say at this point that this post is not a complaint – I’m much happier with nights that are actually black, and where you can see many many more stars than you ever could in Manchester or Bracknell. It’s good to have nights like this, and be able to sleep in darkness without needing super-thick blackout curtains.

Anyway, we really hadn’t thought about it all that much. The road we live on has no streetlights at all, and nor do most of the roads in the village. So in the last couple of weeks there’s been a bit of a splurge on torches and reflective gubbins – particularly for me, as I’m the main one to take Hound for walks when I get home from work, by which time it’s now pitch-black. I now have a Maglite that takes three “D”-cell batteries, and appears to be able to illuminate the moon, (Yeah, I exaggerate – but I can still see Hound across two fields with it) and a couple of reflective strips to go on my arms in order to increase my own visibility on those dark roads. Hound also has a reflective collar for similar reasons – and because it’ll stand out when the torchlight hits it.

For home-use (well, garden-use while putting away chickens, etc.) I’m probably going to end up buying some type of lantern thing, or possibly just a big spotlight thing that’ll illuminate the whole area. Over time, we’ll quite possibly also get some solar-powered lighting for the far end of the garden (and the greenhouse) although that probably won’t be ’til next year.