..........is turning out to be even better than I imagined. The house has settled into (relative) peace. There is still the noise of guitars, the occasional phone, radio,CD, but the intrusion of the television is well and truly gone. It gives a very different feel to the house for me. I haven't missed it one jot, and the others admit they haven't either. I listen to the early news on the radio in the morning, after the Shipping Forecast and before Farming Today and that's it for news. That's all I need; I don't want or need to be bombarded with doom, gloom, despair and despondency for hours every day, so having only one news slot is wonderful for me.
Although it possessed an off-button, I've always felt less in control of television output than I ever did with other things - radio, CD player, etc - for some reason.
This evening, for instance, we were all occupied with other things - writing, spinning, and MrL and EJ collaborating on EJ's latest electric guitar project. Yes, I know that will be rather noisy LOL, but it's a noise made by one of us, not some intrusive noise bombarding you from a source completely unconnected to us or our house.
I feel that I can set my own standards for entertaining myself now - not having to be content with some half hour programme just skimming the surface of a particularly interesting subject where it's "dumbed down" and shallow, ending in sheer frustration and disappointment for me.
I don't necessarily "get more done", which is the usual assumption when dispensing with television or a computer, etc. I just seem to be doing things differently, the evenings seem longer, more productive and definitely resulting in a more peaceful end to the day.
4 comments:
We cancelled our licence and gave up the TV two and a half years ago. We have five children aged between 5 and 13, they were a little sad to see the TV go but we talked about it as a family and agreed a trial period of six months. Within a few weeks the children were saying that they didn't need a TV and didn't miss it as much as they thought they would.
You are right about the end of the day being more peaceful without a television. I enjoy our 'famiy noise'; our older children reading to their younger brothers, DD practicing her recorder, all of them sat round the table playing a board game - all a much more comforting background noise than the TV could ever provide.
I am jealous of you being TV free. I would like to get rid of ours but the other family members disagree. I did manage to get them to agree for a TV free month last September and I agree with you totally about the difference in the atmosphere in the house. Although everyone agreed that they missed it less than they thought they would, they wanted the TV back and so far I have been unable to persuade them to do another TV free month.
Thanks for the comments both. It may well come int ime, willow; MrL and I rarely watched it, and the children (15 and 18) are either busy upstairs or roudnabout with other things, or out galavanting! They each have a TV in their rooms for films, etc, but not connected to the outside ariel. I'm biding my time before we organise a connection because if they're happy without it, that more than suits me!
You could always pretend it had broken...........LOL
MrsL
xx
We didn't renew our TV licence this February and had already pretty much stoppped watching TV by that time. We watch DVDs (the boys much more than we do) and use good old iPlayer and such like. The wierdest thing was the amount of post from the licensing people trying to get us to renew. They made us feel that we had to have one and were REALLY pushy!!! I phoned up and got really cross with them in the end...poor chap!!! They were insisting they would send someone round to check that we didn't actually need one...like I didn't understand or something!!!
I hate the news too and try to avoid as much as possible. As you say, it is nearly always bad.
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