Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation…

Yesterday at 1500 the power went out. Fortunately the turkey I was cooking came out of the oven an hour before, so the only real impact was a lack of Yorkshire puddings! After 14 hours, the fantastic team at UK Power Networks had us back up and running. Meanwhile, I got a chance to really test out the assorted battery-powered lights I keep around the house!

PowerPlus Hangable Work Light

Two very bright panels that fold out as needed. It’s freestanding as well as having attachment magnets and a built-in hook.

This was fantastic and easily lit a room, right up until the point when it ran out of power! The batteries aren’t user-replaceable and it charges via a barrel connector, so the only option would have been to run out to the car and run it off the lighter socket.

Great while it lasted though!

“Superbright” LED Torch

I bought a bunch of the Tomtop 200 Lumen torches a few years back and they’re excellent - small, powerful and light.

They’re also not stocked by Amazon any more, but the Anker 400 Lumen model looks similar enough in spec.

Adhesive LED Night Lights

I originally bought these to fit in the bathroom as a night-time alternative to the overhead mains light (which also triggers the extractor fan).

They don’t have the brightness of the torches, but they make up for it in cheapness and flexibility - turn any flat surface into an uplighter, but they make fairly decent hand-held light sources too.

Wind-Up Camping Lantern

This is my “but what if the batteries run out completely” fallback. Good omnidirectional light, and while I’d like a better duration-to-cranks ratio, the ability to hand-charge it is invaluable.

So

I’m fortunate enough that power cuts for me are infrequent, fairly short when they do happen, and have yet to represent anything more of a convenience. It was still a bit of an eye-opener:

• When you want light, you’ll probably really want light
• There’s a bunch of fairly cheap battery-powered torches/lamps/lights - it’s hard to have too many
• Having different kinds of torch is great for different uses and for resilience
• Make sure everyone knows where the lights live - “hunt the lantern in the dark” is neither fun nor easy
• Batteries. Lots and lots of batteries.