Things that Cling

So we’ve made a start on the down-sizing, clearing an area upstairs for sorting, packing and deciding on disposal. Not an easy project for us to embark upon together, as one of us is a squirrel and the other is an, erm, a, well, an animal that likes to throw things away. But, needs must.

One of the first problems of down-sizing is dealing with the stuff that you know you have to get rid of, but you’ve had it for so long, you really find it hard to make that decision. These are not necessarily things that you use. Or even things that still work. But they are things that have become a part of the background of your life.

The last time I counted, we had six TV sets. This is odd, because we don’t really watch much TV. None of them are much good. Out here the reception is poor, and half the time you can’t see what you’re watching, which is annoying if it’s the one programme that week that you really want to see. In a couple of years, the government tells us, all our tellies will be useless, as they will have switched off the signal. This will include our little black and white portable Sony. It still works with the original aerial, a hoop of wire, stuck in the top. It prefers upstairs to downstairs. It’s thirty-five years old now. We bought it the week Edward Heath got chucked out of Downing Street and Harold Wilson returned. This was soon after we got married. We agonized over buying it, as we thought it might change the way we lived. (It didn’t). For similar reasons, we don’t have a TV on our boat, and don’t plan to get one.

The little Sony set was our only TV for some years, until the boys were born, and we realized that we would have to get a) a bigger screen and b) colour. But we kept the Sony as a back-up. Later it became an early computer monitor, and then a games console. Then it just got forgotten in a cupboard. Out it came last week, and, with a pile of other stuff, we said our goodbyes, and thank yous, and off it went to the tip for recycling.