Thursday 25 July 2013

What Would You Do for the Quiet Life?

The big news here in the UK this week was the birth of the #RoyalBaby, unfortunately I had to miss all the coverage as my next July challenge was to go one week without my television.

Thank goodness for the Radio, Heart FM kept me up to date with everything I needed to know re baby news and I was also lucky enough to share my challenge with Ed and Rachel's Breakfast Show live on air.

It's not very often I get such a flamboyant start to my challenges but this week's did get off to a pretty impressive start.

Due to the closure of Birmingham's Queensway Tunnel (for my International readers this is one of the main routes in and out of Birmingham City), Ed and Rachel were asking their listeners to call in with their own 'closures'.  As I'm an avid fan of the show I thought I'd give them a ring and see if they could assist me with closing down my telly - of course this simply meant switching it off but you all know how dramatic I like to be.  After Ed and Rachel counted me down I very dramatically pulled the plug on the fifth member of our family!

So there you go - my five minutes of fame and what a giggle it was.


The week's nearly over, have I missed the telly?  No I haven't, after last week's no Facebook I did worry that I may develop a nervous twitch, but this week's challenge has been fairly easy.  The only night I did struggle was Friday.

The children and I have a film night every Friday.  We pick a DVD and stock up on popcorn, we close the curtains and pretend we're at the cinema - single mum with three kids, can't afford the real thing very often!

It was tough when we realised that film night wasn't allowed this week.  Instead of a DVD we played hangman, pictionary and a board game called 'Are you smarter than a 10 year old' - which I am not apparently.

So what did I do without the television?

In one week I've managed to read 2 and a half books, written two short stories for competitions, a flash fiction compilation, done some research for my YA novel and even attempted a Lipogram.

This challenge got me wondering how much time I actually waste watching Friends re-runs so I did some sums and in one week I've managed to claim back 17 hours. 

Will I be plugging the set back in again, it wouldn't bother me either way - the kids may disagree - although if you told me The Vampire Diaries was starting tomorrow I'd fight you for the remote control.

Could you cope without the television, would your world be turned upside down without Coronation Street?  Why not have a go at working out how much time you spend watching the box, it may scare you enough to pull the plug and read a good book instead.

2 comments:

  1. I haven't owned a telly for nearly 15 years. The new Writers Forum puts average viewing at 30 hours per week - the best part of four working days. You could fit nearly a full-time writing career into that.

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    1. That is impressive Douglas. I don't think I could give up my television full time but I am definitely cutting back. The statistics from Writers Forum should scare quite a few people, writers or not. Thanks for sharing

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