The days are drawing in..

I have noticed this week that our days have begun to grow a little shorter for those of us who live in the southern hemisphere.

Night is drawing on earlier than it did just a week ago, and we have brought out the feather-down quilt and put it back on our bed again.

The light of day is fading quickly after the evening meal now and we are putting the lamps on to read and write by.

A familiar cosy feeling creeps into the house at this time of the year and I always look forward to wrapping our Autumn nights up in soft warm candle-light.

We have candles lit on Friday nights year-round as we end the busy working week and move into the quieter and slower days of the weekend. 

But with the ensuing darker hours of Autumn and Winter I have even more excuse to illuminate the home with the softer glow of oil lamps and beeswax :-)

I find it fascinating to watch lighting create atmosphere in a room.

The harsh blaring light of a TV or computer screen eg. makes one agitated and tense, while the dimmer light of lamps and candles helps one to unwind and de-stress.

I like to end the day with no noise and in low light.

It helps to ready me for bed and rest.

It's more natural and kinder to the body and soul, especially after a day full of activity and motion.

It's also a way to connect to the past and how our ancestors ended their days.

I was speaking with my 96yr old mother just recently about such things, and she reminisced about when she was a girl living in a two-storey victorian terrace house with her parents and siblings and numerous other family members.

She laughed as she remembered how excited they were to get gaslight connected to the house - just in one room mind you, the main sitting room - because it was expensive and they had to pay for it daily by inserting coins in a box to operate the gas-lamps.

And she looked back fondly to the nightly ritual of my irish grandfather standing at the bottom of the stairs and calling up to the bedrooms, "Put that candle out!"

He knew that if he allowed her to, she would be sitting up in bed all night long reading a book by the flickering flame and "burning the candle at both ends"!

Now I know where I get it from... :-)