The fire pit!!
Let me tell you a story, a story that started 8 years ago.
When we up'd sticks from Somerset to Scotland we did the most important thing of our lives. Not the move that is.
We left the TV behind.
I was concerned about Ollie, then 2, about the amount of TV he watched and also the amount I was watching.
It would be fine, I thought. Easy peasy!!
Reader.
If I had been coming off Smack I think it would have been easier.
I went cold turkey and suffered greatly.
You see, I had grown up in the time where TV started to take a hold of the nation. A time where you had 4 (!!! Count 'em!! 4!!!!) Channels and the box was switched on in the morning and turned off at bedtime.
I had no idea what a huge force it was until it wasn't there anymore.
Suddenly there was no reassuring voices in the room when I was on my own. No distraction, no reason to sit glazed eyed on the sofa in the middle of the afternoon.
I heard noises in the house that had been masked by the constant prattle from the TV, and I was afraid.
Do I do without visual stimuli all together?
Nope. I love a good movie and have a stupid amount of DVD's. But there is a difference.
A movie is (mostly) 1 and 1/2 hrs of concentration time, no adverts, no rubbish. If you have jobs to do a movie will wait or in the case of kids homework/bedtime/whatever can be turned off and watched again the next day.
The point is a DVD does not demand your time and fidelity in the same way as TV.
You are never afraid that you might be missing something.
You never find yourself working your life around a favourite soap or quiz show.
You never EVER have to have your movie split into two so the news can come on for 1/2 an hour.
You control the medium rather than the medium controlling you.
So.
Power Off Weekend mark II?
Fantastic!
Again!!
Food.
Mmmm..Veggie sausages!!
Owen and Alfie "cooking".
Alfie cooked his bread :)
Power Off soup! This soup was potato and cauliflower and was "blended" using a potato ricer.
Home made Mango chutney. A pack of frozen mango pieces meant a "Arrrgghh!! What do I do with these!?" moment. Hence mango chutney!
Power Off Bread, made in the dutch oven on top of the log burner.
By using baking paper it was possible to flip the bread over in the dutch oven and therefore brown both sides.
Entertainment.
This time we were better prepared!
Junior monopoly. A cut throat power game in the hands of my children.
Picnic up the top of the hill over the road to us. Beautiful sunny day.
Run my doggies! Run!
Merle and Jenny mushing on!
Some beautiful trees up the hill.
Life as usual.
Washing still has to be done when there are five of you in the house!
Even boiled up some skanky rags, or was that dinner?? Hmmm....
The more expensive candles I brought this time (rather than the cheap Tesco ones!) Threw out enough light to read more than comfortably in.
The log burner. It really is the heart of the home and worked like a trooper for all out heat, hot water and cooking needs.
So will we do it again?
Is a bear in the woods Catholic??
The next Power Off Weekend is in June, so this time we will need to have a long think about refrigeration. We *just* got away with it this time, but any warmer and we would have struggled. So I will need to prepare more for that.
Any of you guys do Power Off this time?
Let me know how you got on and share your ups and downs.
Also, if anyone has any ideas how to keep fod cool in summer let me know!
Hello. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful - thank you for sharing.
I have sent you an invite to be a guest editor / author on our Touchwood Project blog - if you like you can write something on there too about your POW experience - or copy this great blog if you like - I leave it up to you.
As I said, we are going for an extra day, sort of, so the laptop is going off again - and the sun is out again!
Best wishes!
Malcolm
Wow Kelly looks like you guys had a great weekend! I really love reading these POW diaries its so inspirational! I bet early spring and early fall would be the best times to do the POW. With packing (we move this coming weekend) I didn't get a chance to do anything. But maybe by the next POW we'll be settled to try it out. Great picture of the boys in the tree!
ReplyDeleteFantastic! We only did Saturday Power Off this time - next time more. Where refrigeration is concerned - well, our family hasn't had a fridge or a freezer for about 5 years. It wasn't planned: we moved house and needed to buy a new one, and kept forgetting! After six months we realised that we probably didn't need to. An insulated picnic bag keeps everything fresh - even milk, except in really sultry thundery weather. If you're concerned about keeping things cold, a packet of frozen peas stays frozen for a couple of days and lowers the bag's temperature markedly.
ReplyDelete@Malcolm , oooh presure!! I'll mayb have a jig around with this for you :)
ReplyDelete@Andrea, was lots easier this time Andrea, having more light made a huge diffence. Glad you found somewhere to live!!! Let me know how yoru getting on xx
@Victoria Welcome!! People tend to forget that our grans didn't have fridges and even in the 70's not EVERY one did. My mum said Nan used to keep botles of milk in a bucket of water in the summer. Where do you get the frozen peas from though if you don't have a fridge or freezer??
We have to get a new one soon unless we can work out a way to do without in the mean time.