It's been over a year now since South Africa's had a scheduled power cut — the longest stretch since 2018. For the better part of a decade, "the power's out" was just weather. Something you planned dinner, meetings, and Wi-Fi-dependent everything around, whether you wanted to or not.
And yet. Ask around and most homes still have The Candle Drawer. Not the nice ones on the shelf — the other ones. Stubby, unscented, slightly waxy-smelling from being crammed in next to the matches and a torch that's needed new batteries since March.
Old habits, reasonable ones
We don't think that's irrational. A decade of genuine unpredictability teaches a household to keep a few things on hand without being asked twice, and that habit doesn't undo itself just because the last year has been steady. Even the most optimistic outlook for the grid still comes with a footnote about ageing coal plants and a supply gap analysts expect to tighten again toward the end of the decade. Keeping candles in a drawer costs nothing and insures against very little going wrong. That's not paranoia. That's just a fair trade.
What we'd actually suggest
If a candle's job is sometimes "get me across the room safely" rather than "make the lounge smell like Quiet Evening," a few small candles spread around a space do that better than one large one — more points of light for the same amount of wax. Keep them somewhere you can find by feel, in the dark, without needing a phone torch to look for the torch.
And the basics apply regardless of why you're lighting one: never leave a burning candle in an empty room, keep it well clear of curtains and paper, and out of reach of kids or pets who find fire endlessly interesting.
We're glad the emergency version of candle-buying has quietened down. We're not in any hurry to stop making the nice ones just because the lights have stayed on.