While they never totally lose their romance, candles are an essential part of our lives at this time of year. There isn’t enough daylight for our solar panel to provide us with electricity for lighting. So every night we dine by candlelight. Lovely. But having to cook and wash-up by candlelight is not great. It’s a little thing, but come the end of the winter, we really appreciate the days getting longer again.
So we know about candles. We’ve discovered that broadly there are two types: ones that burn, leaving behind an unburned substance that drips and clogs up candlesticks; and another type that is clean burning. You can happily stick them in an empty wine bottle and they won’t dribble down the side on to the table and they’ll kindly vacate the space, ready for the next one. While we have no idea what the ingredients are of those two types, we count ourselves lucky that the non dribble ones exist and that we can buy them quite easily locally.
Well quite easily. The Co-op is one source. Or at least it was. Our recent experience served to remind us just how far from the mainstream we are.
“Why aren’t there any candles on the shelf?”
“Candles are a summertime product. We don’t sell them in the winter.”
!
So when the nights are longer and darker, we don’t want candles, right?!
How does this make sense? I suppose it must make sense to someone and may be it is a sign of how lucky we (well most of us) are to have a reliable and seemingly endless supply of electricity.
It’s something we will never take for granted ever again.