I’VE seen the light.

Darkness is cool. Gloom rules.

One day recently I walked around the house noting which lightbulbs had blown and were in need of replacement.

It took me a good half hour to do the job. I took it so seriously I armed myself with a scrap piece of paper and pen. It might not seem like a big job to you, but believe me, this took some organising.

The previous homeowner had a lighting fetish. Not content with having one bulb per fitting, he had installed these many-headed beasts that consume three or four at once.

Walk into a room and you’re confronted by a veritable Medusa of glowing filaments.

Which is all well and good when each bulb works. But they have a habit of going pop. And not all at once.

One will fizzle out within a few days while others glow until they’re ready for a telegram from the Queen.

I realised things were reaching crisis point when I had to light candles in the kitchen just to cook the family’s spag bol.

I should explain the kitchen is the room where the previous owner’s lighting-mania reached its fullest expression.

There are countless spotlights, concealed lights under the wall cupboards and another under the cooker hood. Some days it’s like working on an airport runway.

But on this particular day there were only two bulbs left straining their little filaments to squeeze out the last drops of illumination.

It was time to do something.

It had been a while since I’d done a full inventory of our lights and the bulb drawer was bare. I took out a sample bulb from each light and made a note of style, wattage and fitting. I calculated how many I would need to restore our home to a safe level of illumination.

Inventory in hand, I went to Homebase and spent a small fortune. I returned with my glass globes, enough to illuminate Blackpool.

Another half an hour was spent replenishing the light fittings. I sat down with a cuppa to admire my handiwork, enjoying the magic trick of making darkness vanish at the flick of a switch.

I thought that would be it for a few months, perhaps a year. But within days the bulbs I hadn’t replaced started popping.

I give up.

I could spend a good portion of my life walking around the house, policing technology, decor and the garden, intervening, putting things right, anticipating malfunctions.

I would never sleep, never eat, never speak to my family.

It could quite easily become an obsession.

But now I’ve seen the light.

I’m just going to lie here and enjoy the darkness.