It begun this morning with a dull morning and trying to manage with my 2 solar lights. It wasn’t easy. Eventually I switched on a table lamp so that I could see what I was doing.

They work fine in the evening when I’m just lounging about and they are supplemented with candles.

I have a reasonably enormous long lasting light bulb in my kitchen which illuminates my room as if it was outside. It’s more than a foot tall and doesn’t look very nice, but it gives a great light.

My house wasn’t built to let the light in.

However I decided that a grey day was a good day to see how I could manage.

And the most obvious thing was to take down the net curtains as they kept out quite a lot of light, while also hiding the state of the door

I found some ready-made plaster in a tub and filled in as many spaces as I could where daylight was shining through the wood surrounds of the door.

In an ideal world I would get a new door. It has been patched , added to and strengthened, but the wood round the glass is rotten and is held in by plaster and good luck. The 3d hinge is broken off and a gale blows through the side as well as in the gap in the middle. And I regularly have to go and get a hammer to batter it shut.

Other than that it’s fine.

It occurred to me today that I’m not handicapped by having to do things right so I’ve plastered and painted and it looks much better and will likely last another few years.

It’s relatively secure so that’s not normally a problem.

I have a cream coloured fleece which covers the worst of the gaps for the winter so I’ll have light and less wind blowing through.

I was able to sit at the desk beside the door and work on my other light related item for most of today without turning on a light.

I’m decorating a lampshade for someone and part of my efforts on the door were really procrastination as it’s a very fiddly job. I find writing script very difficult.

I remembered to do some yoga this morning and then as my new stretchy bands arrived in the post I did a series of strengthening exercises using them. Feeling smug.

Now it’s wine and candles time. It’s still not very cold.

Cheers 🍷🍷