Let there be light...

I mentioned recently that we've been living in the shadows for a while. On the landing, at least.

A couple of years ago I installed a security light switch. A clever little beast with a built-in timer and a photocell which provided a wealth of options on when it would turn on, and off, and how many times, and on what days. Versatile enough to make even the most observant tea-leaf believe there really was someone in the house on those all-too-rare occasions when we go away.

Shame then that those clever electronics weren't also resilient electronics. Call me picky, but I'd have thought a light switch should be able to withstand something as simple as a blown light bulb. I'm not talking massive electrical storm, direct lightning strike, or rat-inspired short-circuit. Sooner or later, your light bulb is going to turn up its toes. A light switch whose electronics are fritzed by such a common occurrence shouldn't, to my mind, be allowed on the market. But there you have it. First dead light bulb... one dead light switch.

In my normal procrastinatory fashion it's taken me several months to shift my ass into gear but today I finally coughed up the £1.48 for a replacement switch - and fitted it! Not another electronic one, mind. No, that would have set me back at least ten times as much, and probably gone pop again the next time the bulb blew, so it's back to the relative simplicity of a standard two-way for us. Let's hope there are no burglars watching.