Steel Kitten

TV? What TV?

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. 

Whose energy imprints are on your belongings?

I'm sat here in my little rocking chair (1960s Ercol, £10, ad in shop window) by a wonderful roaring open fire (secondhand on ebay) with a cup of tea in a rose mug (John Lewis, £1 at car boot sale), staring at the oil painting above the fireplace (£3 auction) and contemplating just how much I have in my life of which I'm not the original owner.

The rug under my feet is a bound carpet offcut from my parents (free), the room-sized wool one under that came from someone moving house who didn't want it (John Lewis, free) and the sofa behind me was given to us by a friend (Ikea, free). The coffee table to my left (1960s Ercol pebble, one of set for £15) came from a secondhand shop, as did the log basket to my right (£3). The hand-beaten copper coal bucket (£3 from the tip) to the left of the log basket currently holds our smokeless fuel and sits just in front of the Harrods wicker picnic basket (£8 ebay) that holds all of our DVDs. 

The room is warm and cosy thanks to my draft excluder, which started life as a curtain offcut from my parents and an old pillow. As I look across the room to Martin on the computer, he's sitting on a secondhand computer chair (ebay), covered with a plaid wool blanket (£1, car boot sale) drinking out of a mug that came from my old agency (free when they had a clear out as I drank out of it all the time).

Even the furry slipper boots I'm wearing didn't technically have me as their first owner (£2 car boot sale, new with tags still on). I should point out there are some thing we don't get secondhand though. Underwear obviously. Food. Computer equipment. Our bed. Ermmmm...four of the chickens were new, although technically they were the farmer's first so perhaps that doesn't work. Even the cats were someone else's first.

Anyway, my point is: I hadn't realised how deeply ingrained it is within Martin and I to reuse and recycle. I also didn't realise until tonight just how much of my stuff probably has someone else's energy imprint attached to it, which could negatively affect us.

I've been reading Karen Kingston's space clearing and decluttering blog and was struck by her comments about taking pot luck on the histories of secondhand items and that they can have energy attached to them that hinders you rather than helps. Even handmade items will have the energy of their maker still on them, which is perhaps what draws us to them in the first place. That energy is channeled into the item in front of us.

"Everyone creates a certain amount of energetic gunge on a daily basis, which leaves a residue in their homes in the same way as everyday living creates cleaning and tidying on a physical level. As Jane Alexander so succinctly put it in her article about space clearing, "Most of us are probably living in the psychic equivalent of a rubbish dump"." Karen Kingston

I'd be a liar if I said that everything was ok over here right now. Most of the rooms are chock full of stuff, an unfortunate by-product of doing the kitchen and conservatory. It's been this way for some time and just seems to be going on and on and on. When you compound that with all the secondhand items we own, you can maybe begin to get an idea of the atmosphere and funk that is starting to develop in this house.

I have a very sensitive nose and I can smell stale energy. To me corners of rooms smell different to the centres and also the areas around certain pieces of large furniture, like sofas and chests of drawers, smell slightly different. And don't get me started on the tiny spaces under the bits of furniture - they reek. But I can also smell other people's energy plus each room in this house has an individual smell, as do the items that come out of it. I know if Martin has been in a shop on his way home from work because his clothes smell different to usual. I can smell straight away when the cats walk in if one of them has been in someone else's house.

Martin used to think I was nuts until he realised I was the human equivalent of a bloodhound and that comes in useful for finding lost things. If he brings a tool in from the garage or something down out of the loft and misplaces it a few days later, I can usually locate it by pinpointing a garage or loft smell in one of the rooms. 

But it does take it's toll on me. Being surrounded by so many different smells all the time is tiring. Perhaps that's why I enjoy spring cleaning so much and rearranging my furniture and belongings. It gets rid of that old stale energy and neutralises the smells.

I think I've probably reached the lowest point now since we bought this house, and it's purely to do with the fact the kitchen is ripped out, the conservatory and back room are stuffed to the gills with equipment and kitchen cupboards, and there's dust and plaster over the walls, floors and fittings. I'm cooking in the hallway on a single ring camping stove and in less space than you could swing a cat in.

My sense of smell is being assaulted on a daily basis by unpleasant and alien odours and I'm absolutely knackered. 

If anyone needs space clearing, it's me right now.

Happy New Year one and all!

The fire on Christmas Eve lit with Northern Lights colour cones

Well hello there! 

I know, I know....I shamelessly disappeared a few days before Christmas and left you all in the lurch! I got so immersed in all things festive I didn't have the time to come back and wish you all a Merry Christmas. Hope yours was as wonderful as ours - peaceful, fun and restful! A great combination.

What have I been doing since my last post? Chilling. Thinking. Analysing my life, where I've been and where I'm going. Usual stuff that happens in January when it's quiet. Lots of decisions made and plans laid down.

By the way, what did you think of the snow? I loved it. It just made Christmas for me. I'm in the process of going round to all of your blogs to see what you all made of it and see your pictures. I only have three for you:

 Bisto and Oxo not impressed with the snow storm.

Definitely not chicken prints but these were massive and went all the way down the garden. Pheasant?

Gorgeous fluffiness
  I wanted to show you all of the Christmas gifts that I made, but have just realised I don't have many photos of them! But I can tell you I did:

An apron for my mother and mother-in-law, both with recipes on the front pocket. My mother's recipe was for my grandma's Red Cabbage while my MIL's was for Martin's grandmother's fairy cakes (also known in the family as Duck Sinkers). I used inkjet ready fabric for the recipe pockets backed with white cotton. I will post a picture of the aprons when I can get some of them.

 
A cafitiere cosy for my MIL

A pair of knitted long stripey blue and white gloves for my niece

A lap quilt for my sister

 
A catnip pillow for each of the cats

And just for me: a new tea cosy!

 
I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope the next 12 months are peaceful, prosperous and that you set into motion plans for accomplishing all you've been dreaming about.

My goals and dreams for 2010? Learning to drive...and to help me, a little something from my husband for my birthday.

 
A classic little 1983 Fiat 126. We sure stopped a few guys in their tracks at the petrol station of the way back from picking it up from Huddersfield yesterday. Not sure what my instructor will make of this. She drives a BMW mini...