Easy as Changing a Light Bulb

Daylight hours here are now a bit ridiculous. It doesn't get dark until after 10:30 pm and then it's light again around 4:30 am. It's a huge difference to December when the sun would rise after I got to work and set before I left.

The extra daylight came in handy this week when the light bulb in my room burnt out. It burnt out Monday night (shorting the fuse as it went) and we had no spare bulbs in the flat so Tuesday after work I stopped to get a new bulb. When I got to the light bulb section, I realized that I should have done a bit of research first. Besides having all the different shapes, wattages and eco ratings, they also had different fittings - not just the screwy-inny ones, like Canada, but also a bayonet fitting (with sort of sideways prong thingys). I had no idea which one I needed so I went back to my flat to take out the old light bulb to see what fitting it had. I tried to unscrew the bulb and it didn't work (although I did manage to unscrew the whole sitting on my light fixture, which made for an interesting time), so I deduced that it must be a bayonet fitting. This led to another problem in that I had no idea how to take out a bayonet fitting light bulb. I was reduced to turning on my computer and sheepishly Googling how to change a light bulb. I finally got the old light bulb out, noted that it was 60W and indeed a bayonet fitting, and then headed out to a nearby store. They didn't have a great light bulb selection and had no 60W bayonet light bulbs so I decided to wait until Wednesday and go back to the first store. This is where having a lot of daylight hours really came in handy. I do have a bedside lamp so I wasn't completely in the dark but it was nice to have daylight as well.

Wednesday I went back to the first store and they didn't have any 60W bulbs either (is 60W just not done in the UK? And if not, how did one end up in the room in the first place?!) but they did have 70W bulbs so I got one of those and proudly installed it in my light fixture. I turned on the light to admire my handy work, which is when I noticed the tag on the light fixture that said 60W maximum in dire "punishable by death" red font. After encouraging the light fixture to go forth and procreate, I headed back out to the store.

So two days and four trips to the store later, I am typing this under the light of my brand new 55W light bulb... which is supplemented by the bright daylight streaming in my window....