WORK IN AN OFFICE? Bring Suncream and Shades!

Little did I realise that the issue of UV exposure would pop up again so soon!

As winter takes hold and the sun becomes an ever more distant memory, our offices here at Fresh Indulgence begin to be plunged into a gloomy darkness. Despite having windows fully lining two of our four walls, and my desk pushed right up against them, I just cannot seem to get enough light!

This is a constant source of debate between myself and my colleagues who work in the same room as me, who for some reason seem to enjoy sitting in the dark. If I turn the overhead office lights on, Phillip complains of glare on his monitor, Rebecca says it will give her a headache, Starr says finds natural light (or lack of) "relaxing", and India, Antonetta and Mark are worthless as allies as they seem to be as happy in the dark as they are in the light!

After two days of fog here in Bromley, I finally decided I could take no more, and began researching desk lamps. It seems that everybody is recommending Halogen (also known as Quartz) lamps as reading lights. I was ready to hit the "buy" button when I discovered something quite shocking.

Did you know that when sitting with one of these unfiltered lamps beside you on your desk, your eyes and skin will reach their daily exposure limit for Ultra Violet Radiation within ten minutes? In other words, your skin is subjected to the same levels of UVR from a halogen bulb sat 25cm away from you as it is sitting outside in the midday summer sun... in Australia (these studies were carried out by the Australian Radiation Laboratory and the National Radiological Protection Board in the UK)!

Even at a distance of 100cm, your eyes and skin have been exposed to your daily limit of UVR in only 2 hours 40 minutes.

In order to place this lamp at a safe enough distance, I would need to place it almost two metres away from where I am sitting. Not much of a desk lamp then.

Of course, by using products which contain SPF, I am giving my skin some defence against this anyway, but what about my eyes? I am just not sure that sitting at my desk in sunglasses from now until March would be very practical, particularly as it would simply plunge me back into the darkness I so wish to avoid.

For now, then, it looks as though I will have to do some more research to check that the lamps I was looking at come with filtered bulbs, or else get used to the gloom - at least until I can reasonably bring out the Christmas fairy lights. With the Christmas deals we've got planned for next month though, maybe I can use "getting into the festive spirit" as my excuse for some early decorations!

Just please don't tell me that Christmas lights use halogen bulbs, too!