Let there be light (or, hopefully, not)

 

There are small changes afoot in this house at the moment and I'm really not very sure about them.  Mostly they're to do with light, or lack of it, and even though I'd been warned, they've taken me by surprise.  We've always preferred lamps rather than ceiling lights and for several years have only had one lamp on in the sitting room during the evening which has suited us just fine.  Ash watches his quiz shows, I watch something completely different on my lap top and nothing has a requirement for more light than that given off by a 40W light bulb.  Then Ash began to switch a second lamp on which was unusual but ok as far as I was concerned, still an ambient glow and nothing too bright, only now a third lamp has been added to the equation and it's right over where I sit with my laptop.  I walk into the room to find it's on and quietly switch it off and leave only to find when I go back in that it's on again.  For the moment at least I'm willing to go through the switching on and off each evening but I have a feeling that the third lamp might shortly be here to stay.  Then there's our bedroom.  For years and years we've slept with the darkness only broken by the red numbers on the clock radio which Ash bought me for my 18th birthday 42 years ago and we've been fine with it.  One of my favourite things to do is to draw back the curtains on a dark morning and lie in bed watching the sky getting lighter.  The first change here then was when I went back upstairs with the tea one morning last week to find he'd switched on the bedside lamp.  It hasn't happened since but I know it will and when it does my opportunities for watching the day dawn will disappear from view.  Finally, back to that very dark night time bedroom.  Two nights ago I shut the door, got into bed, turned to Ash and said 'alright?' as I do every night.  His reply was that he'd been fine until I'd closed the door, that he didn't like the door closed and  we NEVER went to sleep with the door closed.  Apparently he liked it open so he could see the light from the telephone on the landing as well as a couple of other things out there emitting a beam.  This came as a huge shock to me and, luckily, I was speechless.  I say 'luckily' because we all know not to disagree with someone living with dementia so 'luckily' I managed to keep quiet, get up and open the door a little.  Ash settled down happily after that but I was in despair thinking that I might end up having to sleep in a room lit up like a fairground (and yes I do know I'm exaggerating here) however the next night I decided to see what happened if I closed the door and plunged the room into darkness and do you know what?  He was fine.  So the problem has resolved itself for now but I think it was a sign of things to come and I'm not looking forward to it one little bit.

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