All the magazines will tell you that natural light in our houses is what we all strive for nowdays, and I’m generally an advocate. Doing the semester of Renewable Energy at Epping NMIT a few years ago really tuned me in to hours of sunlight, angles, azimuths and passive solar principles. The rare gnashing of teeth we experienced with our otherwise wonderful neighbours when they built a huge second story on their house, effectively blocking off direct sunlight from April to September (when we borderline SAD types most need it!) confirmed that my body craves light. Of a certain kind. And the kind is getting more specific. 
At some point it wasn’t just cool to twist off two of the four fluorescent tubes in my office, it was a neccessity. I began taking a lot more notice of what reading lights were around the bed when I checked into hotel rooms (none of them ever matched the beautiful soft 40W ones we have at home) – even rearranging the lamps and bed position so I wouldn’t have to rely on a solitary bulb in the ceiling above my head. I can’t even watch TV without wincing if the main lounge room light is on nowdays. Harsh lighting just irritates me physically. I hope it’s not yet another sign of ageing – it’s been depressing enough recently with the abandonment of long distance running ambitions (shin problems) and virtuoso piano performance (left elbow tendonitis – crappy Voltaren just makes me tired and moody and hasn’t fixed the ache yet). I wonder what work would say if I rocked up and donned a tennis visor whilst in the office – it could be my very own little icebreaker/conversation piece. I’m sort of hoping it’s all because of the air-conditioning or cursed ducted heating dry-eye thing rather than any real problem. I read somewhere that it was a side-effect of Graves disease, but so are a million other things. Let’s not dash those Olympics skeet shooting or alpine fox-culling plans just yet. Please!