Recommendations for a bright lamp

[mackerel]

so that we can see each other, read books etc in the evenings. We had a battery powered one last yr that was rubbish, but want to keep to batteries as opposed to gas due to small children potential to knock it over.

marking place

have always ended up with a headtorch instead for reading.

People speak highly of rechargeable work lamps though (about 60 LED) eg here but we have not tried one. ideally you'd want 12v recharge for more than a weekend. Or electric hookup.

The Coleman ones are supposed to be good but worried about getting hold of spare bulbs.

Which sort do you mean? Decent camping shops will have spare fluorescent tube bulbs, we had to get a new one once for our Coleman 4D tube lamp.

I fancied the Retro or Rugged one(v heavy though) then saw on one of the reviews on Amazon it was tricky getting hold of spare bulbs and as they're American I was concerned it would be even worse here.

However on the Coleman site there are contacts for spares,have e-mailed one,not heard a reply yet though.

So spares are universal,that's good.

We have just bought the Coleman Retro Rechargeable lantern here

It seems great. Really bright light. We'll be testing it out this week - off to the Lake District tomorrow Be interesting to see how long it lasts before needing charging - can be charged on the car battery or normal mains. Slight concern re the bulb replacement but will try not to worry about that for now.