A little light relief

Communicating at night in the car

We make a long, daily, trip in the car which in winter means we spend a lot of time driving in the dark when Sue can’t see my face.

Without lipreading Sue is isolated and dark journeys meant we struggled to ‘talk’ which shut Sue out. Turn on the interior light you say, but, on the twisty and narrow, unlit, country roads we use, that decreased night vision for me to the point of being dangerous.

Last winter it finally dawned (no pun intended) on me that the small map-reading lights either side of the interior light would provide sufficient illumination for Sue whilst not inhibiting my night vision, so we now chat during our trips in the dark. Simple, but it took a while to realise there was a way to adapt.

And life is like that. If you haven’t already been told, or worked out for yourself, flicking lights on and off when entering a room where your partner is can prevent moments of shock and fright when your partner suddenly and unexpectedly finds someone at their shoulder.

Not only can that prevent surprise and shock, it can prevent some ‘adult’ words of surprise – bit of a cringe when there are others around. Light flicking also works for us as a way of communicating when Sue is upstairs and I’m down (and vice versa). But it’s never going to be a way to overcome her shouted questions like “have you seen…” or “where is…” or “are we …”? In those cases I use the stairs to answer in person, the exercise is good for me – but why does she so often wait until I get back to what I started to call a follow up question? Oh well, it’s a basic work out at home.