Getting Things Done

In anticipation of my tutoring work fizzling out in the Summer, (I have tried to pin the Bursar down about issues such as funding and commitment, but he tends to shy away from such words) Andy and I are attempting to 'get things done' whilst we have a bit of extra cash. Like getting another car - tick. And buying a fruit cage for the allotment -nearly tick. And getting the TV aerial sorted before one or all of us throws the telly through the front window in wild frustration.

Let me explain. When we moved here we had a telly, like you do. The aerial point was what might be termed 'a hole in the wall' because it was. It didn't connect to the telly, so, as a short-term measure, we bought one of those tiddy portable aerials to reside on the window ledge until sorting out the proper aerial (which went on the list of 'things to do' ) got done.

Six years later...digital TV is now upon us. And a cat (Pandora) who can't leave the tiddy portable aerial alone and chooses to hug it and interfere with the signal at important TV moments like finding out the 'Pass' answers to a Mastermind question, or the punchline to a potentially hilarious joke on 'QI.' And because digital TV is so great and the best thing since sliced bread (HA!) we also find that when certain cars/ buses/ mopeds go past the front window at certain points in the day, the signal is muchly disturbed, thus causing OUT-RAGE and TENSION to us, the viewees, and the longing for the good old days of analogue.

So...

...on Tuesday, I telephoned a 'family firm est 1978' who dealt with aerials, and arranged for them to come out today, as Andy was home and I was at work and therefore wouldn't have to get involved in man chat about TV signals, being on a hill/ in a dip, and the whole sorry state of the digital TV switch over malarkey in general.

And when I got home, there was a new aerial on the roof, and the TV plugged into the hole in the wall. Andy said it was a father and son team who turned up. The son was about 60 years old, the father about 85. It was the father who got sent up onto the roof. Andy couldn't bear to stay and watch so nipped into town to the cash point to get them some money. He said the father was very short, and his head kind of shrunk into his shoulders.

I wondered how many times the father had fallen head-first off a roof since 1978.

Anyway, it's all done. No more interference. No more tiddy portable aerial for Pandora to love.

And the irony is that it's Thursday, and this week, because I've been reading and writing in the evenings, I've watched all of about an hour and a half of telly. (Including commercial breaks.)

Aerial - tick!