Thought a little update was due about the whole TV-free thing I blogged about last year. On 24th November Martin and I committed to turning off the TV for three months. No more idly channeling-surfing our lives away every evening or getting irritated by the looking for SOMETHING, ANYTHING to watch and finding nothing.
So how has it gone?
Really well!
Within three days of my post we had contacted Sky to have our Satellite service switched off, which turned into a feat in itself as a lady in the Retention department spent just over 20 minutes trying to convince Martin he shouldn't do it.
Two of her questions were: "But what are you going to do instead of watching TV??!!" and my personal favourite "But you won't be able to take part in any conversations at work when your friends are talking about a programme. You'll be left out!"
In the end, Martin had to pretend to have been made redundant, that I was very ill and not working and both of us at the bankruptcy court door before she gave in and let us cancel. Phew! That was one tough sell we got through.
So have we switched it on since then? Yes. We still watch DVDs every now and then so we switch it on for that. But we've watched less than 10 DVDs since the end of November.
Have we watched any TV programmes? Yes again. I did see a couple of Wallace and Gromit animations on Christmas Day (but then it wasn't my house we were in so I had no right to tell them to turn the TV off). I've also watched Victorian Farm, Griff Rhys Jones' series about the renovation of his estate buildings and every Wednesday True Blood until the series ended before Christmas. However, all of these I watched on the Internet, either the BBC's iplayer or Channel 4OD service.
99% of the time the TV is switched off now.
So what have we been doing instead?
I've started writing a book, we've laid new insulation and boarded the loft, Martin has sold a ton of attic stuff on eBay, I'm working through each room decluttering and of course we're doing the kitchen and aim to have it finished by Valentine's Day. Every now and then we go back through our CDs listening to them and transferring them to our ipod. I've developed a liking for Bluegrass music and Irish fiddling, not to mention rediscovered Radio 4. And of course some evenings we sit snootched up by the fire with books in laps and wine in hand. We have so much more time now. We actually talk to one another instead of grunting over the noise of the TV.
I can honestly say we do not miss it. And we have an extra £45 in our pocket every month.