It’s a week until I go back to work, so it’s time I tested my hand on typing, see if I can actually manage it…

As reported in that post below, the streetlight outside of our house has been replaced. the story is as follows…

APRIL 1ST

It is the middle of the night. I go downstairs to quench my thirst. I noticed it was dark, and I was having trouble finding my way down the stairs. Something was wrong. Normally, the light outside lights the way merrily. I peek out of the window, and notice it was actually off, for the first time since it was installed. Ooooh!

Later that day, I check the webcam archives, and noticed it had been flickering off and on all night, and had went off completely at about 1AM.

APRIL 2ND

It appeared back to normal, it was lit, no flickering. Strange things do happen occasionally. I thought that was just that.

APRIL 11TH

Back to flickering, and it seemed to be switching off earlier each night, sometimes even before midnight.. It did this for the next 10 days. Mary, a few doors down has reported it.

APRIL 15TH

Well, it was the end. I was in bed, strangely enough dreaming about streetlights. The dream was about me finding a flattened lamp post round the corner from The Corner House (a pub in Hartlepool) and proceeding to gut it for parts, i.e. removing the light sensor and the bulb… I remember thinking “ooooh! Metal Halide! I don’t have one of those!”…

Er, anyway, I awoke at about 1PM to the sound of the doorbell. My dad answered… he replied to whoever it was “Oh, move the car? You’re finally going to fix it?”. I flew out of bed, grabbed some clothes and camera, and made my way to the front bedroom window There was the cherrypicker all ready to service it. Oooh.

The workman opened the back of the van to reveal a stunning array of LPS and HPS bulbs, but alas, I couldn’t see any mercury vapour ones there. Sigh.

He then proceeded to raise the cherrypicker to a respectable level… well, somewhere where he can reach the light, naturally, otherwise his journey would have been pointless.

He undone the clip on the side of the light, and proceeded to fit the new bulb. He also fitted a new light sensor in case it was that which was duff.

What he did now made me laugh. There was an old LPS light he’d been to replace earlier. He attempted to place this old light, and a pile of rags over the top of the photo sensor. It worked…..

…. for about 30 seconds, until a gust of wind blew the rags into our garden. Naturally, the light went off at that point. this time, he tried the box the light sensor came in. again, it worked, but went off about 30 seconds later.

And that, as they say, was it, for that light. With a bit of a grimace, the workyguy removed the light sensor for the last time. He knew it was curtains for the Thorn Beta 79.

He went back down on the cherrypicker, I went to put some clothes on. I took the camera outside at this point. I had never been witness to a luminaire swap before – back in 1984, I was too young to remember it, and in 1995, I was at school. I asked him what was up with it… he just said it was “knackered up top”. He probably thought I was a loon, stood there, with no shoes/socks on, with a camera taking pictures of him.

The image below is a slightly contrast-altered image of TEH WRPKMAN disconnecting the wiring to the old lamp.

And then there was something I had never seen before. the inside of the service cover at the base of the lamp. Look at all those cobwebs. Somehow, working with streetlighting doesn’t seem a dream job anymore.

Seconds later, the lamp was disconnected, and I managed to get an ultra-rare shot of the bare wires at the end. Almost guaranteed never to be seen again by me ever. After all, the life of the last light was 7 years. Which means if this lamp goes at the same life span, I’ll be 30. And probably not living here.

Shortly after, it was all over. He fitted the ugly, ugly light, reconnected the power and disappeared off into the distance. This last image is of the very first time it was switched on.

Now my hand is aching. Lots. first major bit of typing since I broke my hand a month ago. Owwie.