The TV...

 

Misteright and I were talking about our old TV the other day, as we were fitting the brand new one we bought for K to his bedroom wall.  It was a half birthday present (he gets one every year as his birthday is so close to Chrimbletide that we generally can’t afford to give him what he asked for without some extra saving up.)  This year he wanted a TV to go with his Xbox we got him for Chrimble 2010.  We don’t really watch TV; in fact we have not really had a TV in our house since 2007...

As you may remember most parts of the England flooded in the summer of 2007 due to heavy rainfall.  Our neighbourhood was one of those places.   We were fortunate enough not to have water inside the house; we did have a rather large crack left in the ceiling in our living room from water leaking in though.  Eventually, the water started to dry up and our landlord began building some houses next to ours.  The JCBs came to lay the foundations and the vibrations made the crack get bigger, that same evening; Misteright and I were watching the TV and suddenly there was a loud creaking sound.  Yep, you guessed it; the ceiling had fallen down and missed Misteright’s head by inches.  It was a disaster.

The ceiling was the original ceiling that was built with the house in 1891.  It was made of wooded slats and very old thick plaster. The plaster and wood had fallen onto the front half of the room around the bay window.  Large dusty chunks covered my comfy living room. Where they had fallen they had left little craters of destruction and had completely crushed the TV, DVD player, Xbox, PS2 and the hi-fi system.  The curtains had been ripped from the wall and taken the whole rail with it. 

The thick Victorian dust laid everywhere.  It was not pretty.  Thankfully we had Home Insurance.  I called them immediately.  The woman on the phone was really helpful and informed me that a representative would come over to our house and assess the damage. He arrived the following afternoon, I opened the living room door and he gasped rather loudly.  It was obvious that he thought we were trying to pull some sort of scam (the extent of the damage was rather unbelievable.)  The TV was concertinaed and all of the other appliances were so thick with dust and ceiling rubble that they could not be salvaged at all.  The man took away the damaged electrical items in his van but he informed me they would not be replacing the furniture or carpet and curtains as our policy did not cover it.  Deflated, we began to clean up the mess and transfer the undamaged things elsewhere in the house.  It’s a good job that Misteright works from home and at the time his office was in the spare bedroom, it became our living room and his office all at the same time.

The ceiling was made safe by the builders and eventually re-plastered but the room remained empty until last year and some items were replaced (we bought a new stereo) and some things, we did without (like the TV) and it was not a problem until K decided that he needed an XBOX 360, no matter what, at Chrimbletide last year.  I could afford the XBOX but not a TV too so I managed to find one on my local Freegle network.  He was chuffed and was quite happy with it.  

We had planned to get him a brand new TV this Summer, he has grown up quite a lot and with my new job being weekly pay it has been easier for us to save some cash.  We had managed to save almost £270 and then as Misteright and I were searching the Internet for a nice TV for playing XBOX.  We came across an amazing bargain, a whole 40 inches for £299 only a few quid more than what we already had and it was payday which meant we could afford it.  

We finally fitted it to the wall just in time for the school run and we did not even say anything to him about it.  We got home and he went to his room and his little pudgy pre-teenaged face smiled more in that moment than it had for a long time.  He’s still making me brews, unprompted and making sure his room is tidy every single day.  He should be spoiled more often if that’s going to be the response!

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