Since I started lighting a black candle in the evening, my evenings belong to me again

It is 9.15 on a Tuesday. The kitchen is tidy, the dishwasher is on, my husband is watching the news.

I am sitting next to him and I am tired. Properly tired. But my head just carries on.

The email from finance that I have to answer first thing tomorrow. Thursday's meeting. Whether our daughter ever rang back about the flat. And was there not something with the car as well?

I call it my head running laps. And it runs fastest at exactly the moment I am meant to be winding down.

That was how it had been for years. Tired on the sofa in the evening, and still my head had not clocked off. For a long time I thought that is simply how it is when you carry the day on your shoulders.

I see it differently now. But let me start at the beginning.

What I tried first

I am not someone who buys something the moment they see it. So first I tried what you do try.

A proper cup of tea in the evening. Lovely, but my head was unmoved.

Television. I watched, but I did not take anything in. Do not ask me what the ITV drama was about, the one I nearly stayed up for.

The phone. Honestly, that was the worst of the lot. I only meant to have a quick look at my emails and forty minutes later I was still scrolling. My head was fuller afterwards than before.

A book. I read the same paragraph three times and then turned the light off.

And yes, a glass of wine on a Friday. That is nice. It solved nothing.

At some point I just accepted it. Clocking off, for me, meant this: the body sits in the living room, the head is still at the desk.

If you have been nodding this far, you know the feeling. And then it might be worth reading the rest.

A black candle on my friend's sideboard

At the end of April I spent the weekend with my friend Jane in Bath. We have known each other since our twenties, she is 57 and really not a woman for gimmicks.

In the hall, on the sideboard, stood a candle. Matte, black, unfussy. I picked it up: dense matte wax, cleanly poured. It feels like something.

"What on earth is that?" I asked.

"My appointment with myself," Jane said. "Every evening, twenty minutes."

She explained it to me. When everything is done for the day, she lights the candle and starts a guided evening session in an app. For twenty minutes a calm voice takes you through the evening, the phone face down on the table. Then she blows the candle out, and the evening is hers.

I laughed at first. A candle plus an app sounded to me like something for people younger than me.

But one thing struck me that weekend: Jane was different from usual. Calmer. Not tired-calm, but settled-calm. As if someone had cleared the stacks of paper off her desk in the evening.

"I laughed at the start too," she said. "Try it for a week and see what you notice. That is all I will say."

"My appointment with myself. Every evening, twenty minutes."

Jane, 57

99 EUR. I closed the laptop first

Back home I looked up what sort of brand it was: Secrets of Life. A small brand that hand-pours black ritual candles in small batches, with an app of guided evening sessions to go with them.

The 7-Day Set: seven candles, seven guided evenings, one month of the app included. 99 EUR.

I will tell you exactly how it went: I closed the laptop first. 99 EUR for candles, I thought.

The next evening, with my head running its laps again, I did the maths once more. A good scented candle from the posh-candle counter runs 50 to 70 GBP, and it just burns down. Here it was seven candles plus the guided evenings plus a month of the app. One payment of 99 EUR, no subscription, free shipping.

What tipped it in the end was the 14-day returns. If it is not for me, it goes back, I told myself. So I ordered.

If you want to look at the set directly, it is here:

What one of these evenings looks like for me

The parcel came three days later. Seven slim candles, matte and black, each wrapped in cream tissue. You can tell just by holding one that nobody cut corners: dense wax, cleanly poured. It arrived in a matte black box with crinkled cream tissue, so it happens to look ready to give as a gift.

Inside was a card with access to the app. Setting it up took less than five minutes, and I say that as someone who needed two goes at the new printer at work.

The routine is deliberately simple. And that, I think, is the whole point.

By around nine my kitchen is done. I put the phone face down on the table, sound still on. Match, light the candle, start the session.

Then a calm voice takes you through twenty minutes. First a few minutes to arrive. Then to sort the day: what happened, what stays, what can wait until tomorrow. At the end, one single thought to carry into the evening. Then I blow the candle out.

No hocus-pocus, no big promises. More like a fixed appointment in the diary, only with myself.

The seven evenings build on one another, each with its own focus. The first is only about arriving. Later it is about sorting, about clarity, about looking at the next day. You can tell someone thought about the order.

And the candle itself is not just any candle. Dense matte wax, a steady flame, and in its holder it sits solidly on the table. It is unscented, on purpose. It smells of nothing, and that is exactly what is pleasant. It looks like something allowed to stay, not decor you clear away after Christmas.

Why the fixed form works for me: the candle marks a beginning and an end. For twenty minutes my attention has exactly one job. Not television plus phone plus half a conversation on the side, but one flame, one voice, one chair. Nothing else.

My test: seven evenings, honestly logged

What I have to say honestly

What has changed since

Since the start of May this has been my evening, and a few things are different.

The evening belongs to me again. Not to the inbox and not to my head running laps.

The television goes on less often just for the sake of it. The phone stays in the kitchen more often, and I miss it surprisingly little.

My mornings feel clearer, because the evening before did not fray at the edges. I sort my diary now in those twenty minutes rather than dragging it around all evening.

And I am still tired in the evening. But it is a different tiredness. One that feels like the day is done, not like things left unfinished.

Two weeks ago our daughter said on the phone: "Mum, you sound more settled somehow." She did not know anything about the candle then. That pleased me more than I wanted to admit.

Perhaps one more word on the running laps: it did not vanish all at once, one has to be honest. But it now has a fixed time at which I hand it over. That sounds trivial. In everyday life it makes a bigger difference than I would have thought.

The month of the app came with the set, and after that you decide for yourself whether to carry on. There is no automatic renewal and no hidden subscription. That mattered to me, I have been caught out by that sort of thing before.

If you would like to try it yourself:

One more note: the candles are hand-poured in small batches and are only available directly from the brand, not in shops.

My verdict after a good two months

I did not experience a transformation, and I am not promising you one.

I spent seven evenings putting twenty minutes into myself. Since then my day has an ending again, and the evening belongs to me.

Whether it turns out the same for you, there is only one way to find out. Seven candles, seven evenings, and if it is not for you the set goes back within 14 days.