The television is back

Last month, September, we tried a television free month. The television spent a month at the bottom of our wardrobe upstairs but now in October, it has returned to the living room.

After our TV free time we discussed whether to have the television back. I was the only one who wanted to stay without so I was well and truly out-voted! My husband seemed to be the one who missed it most. He rarely reads and watching TV has always been his way of relaxing after work. The boys both read a lot and seemed to be able to fill their time but both wanted the television back although my eldest son is watching less.

I have to admit to being very disappointed that we brought it back. I don't watch much and had expected to enjoy being without the box. In reality it was even better than I expected. Not only did everyone have more time but our evening schedules did not revolve around programme timings. We spent longer over our evening meal and chatted a lot more during the rest of the evening. I had more help with the chores as no-one was rushing to watch a programme. I would have liked to extend the time so that everyone had a longer time to find other activities and get used to the quiet evenings but the deal was that we would have a vote at the end of the month and so that is what we did.

Maybe after a little while I'll see if everybody would be willing to try another month!

TV free September

We decided that we would have a month without the television. I watch little TV and would quite happily be without it but my husband and sons do not share this view.

By the end of the summer holidays I was fed up with the television being switched on for large parts of the day so I suggested we had a TV free month to compensate for the amount watched during the past few weeks. To my surprise everyone agreed so last Monday, 1st September, the television (we only have one) was removed from the living room.

We are now one week into our month and so far it has gone very well. We had decided that we could watch a few programmes on-line if we wanted and we have watched a couple but probably less than two hours in total for all four of us. Two hours television in a week is a lot less than our usual viewing.

What have we been doing instead? We've played cards and scrabble, the boys have read for hours and we've probably sat chatting more than usual. So the first week has gone very well but we'll see what happens next week when the novelty has worn off.

I may be posting less during this month. I do most of my blog reading and posting when the rest of the family are watching television and now they are not doing that I am spending more time in the living room with them and less time up here in the spare room on the computer.

It will be interesting to see how the next three weeks go and how we feel about the television at the end of the month.