NOT MANY things in life come free. So, at €4.90 each from Practiker in Kalamata, the garden solar lights that promised lighting every night for eight hours, for life, with no fuss, seemed just too good to be true. No need even for the ‘sol’ in solar: they would magically work on cloudy days too.
We bought four – never accuse of us not being big spenders – and pushed them determinedly into the hard ground along the line of the path. It’s pitch black at night so after a few carafes of Nemean red or white agioritiko, as we stumble back down the lane, with only the stars of the plough to guide us, there is usually an argument over who forgot to bring the torch.
But this night we hoped for more, the magic of lights with no electricity. We were to be disappointed, for there was nothing. As with all new products that mystifyingly refuse to work, we started to make excuses: “Maybe they need charging longer; maybe it wasn’t sunny enough; maybe we bought duds…”
“Yeah, maybe they are just a rip-off, I mean what do expect at that price?” We waited again the next night, it was a blazingly blue-skied day, they would have to work, but they remained stubbornly black. “Is there is a switch or something?” “No, it said they come on automatically, they have a light sensor as it darkens.” “Where’s the box?”
We rummaged in the waste bins, through the damp and disgusting leftovers of our life and finally found the small, soggy instruction leaflet.
“Did you remove the protective green sticker?”
“What protective green sticker?”
“Aaah…”
So we did and last night as the sun dipped, they started to sparkle, brighter than we could have imagined, with an eerie but effective blue light. “Look at that: they work! Amazing, free light forever… What’s the matter?” “Not sure I like them” “What?” “They are too bright”.
But not in Kundapura, which has become India’s first solar lit town, nor in Afghanistan where soldiers have lit the dark back streets of Nangalam with them, nor in Louisville where they are being used on bus stop roofs to give light for children waiting after school in the dark.
They are so cheap and simple; it’s hard to understand why they are not being used throughout the rural areas of the world and all climates like Cyprus to fuel street lamps and light lanes.
“So why do we need a torch anymore, why don’t we just pick up our solar lights like mediaeval fire torches and take them with us?” “Because – they won’t fit in my pocket”.
It is then I discover the solar centre in UK which tells me that for under £20, not only can I buy a rechargeable solar torch, a solar insect killer, a solar clock, a solar shaver but and, most alluring of all, a solar powered ‘moler’.
For this is the weekend that 40 mole-hills mysteriously appeared around newly planted roses, plumbago and banana trees. Those creatures that need no light: that blindly burrow beneath the green shoots to eat the roots. I watched, along with a very curious cat, as one whole sapling disappeared like the work of a master magician.
The device promises to use the light of the day to move the moles on without harm. I have no idea how it works, or where the moles will go, but I have just ordered one. Solar energy, it seems, can solve even the smallest of problems…
