My television and my video have both conked out in the last week or so, so yesterday Mum took me shopping to but a new combined video and dvd player to go with the new telly that was delivered on Thursday morning. I told her I could manage without it, and that I would ask Father Christmas for one, but she insisted.
The television I had had for ten years, and it was one my brother's friend had given him, so how I don't know how old it was. I had a friend of a friend who was an ayslum seeker, who when he saw it laughed, and informed me his was much better! It was only small, and to read subtitles on it meant you had to leave the sofa and sit on the floor a couple of inches away.
Anyway, after an afternoon of struggling with daft instructions yesterday, I now have a brand new telly and video/dvd, which means I can eventually watch the free dvds I have collected from the papers.
Proably like most people, when first setting up a first home, everything I had was kindly given to me. The only things I needed to buy, my brother gave me the money for and I bought my cooker and fridge freezer second hand. I've mentioned before how touched I was that my family treated me buying my first flat in 1990 as a chance to give me presents in lieu of wedding presents. Very often I wonder what would happen if I suprised them all and got married now, hee hee?
As kids we were never really spoilt. Other children, with probably less money than we had, always had more and bigger and better presents at Christmas than we did, for this I thank my parents. It wasn't until after my Dad had died that I learnt that he had paid for children in India to have their cateracts removed with the money they would have spent on us. A wiser use of the money than on the latest games we'd have seen on the telly, only for those gifts to be shoved under the beds by early in the New Year.
We did get spending money, I can't remember how much, but I do remember that if I saved up for two weeks I could afford a book which they used to sell at Moor End Post Office.
I must have once had ambitions to be Rupert Murdoch when I was about eight, because I saw an advertisment in the paper for a duplicater. It cost £4.99 plus p&p. Dad said he would loan me the money but that I would have to wash and wipe the pots and clean the car for a whole year. When it came I was so excited only to find it consisted of an oblong wooden frame, a bottle of ink, a metal pole and a bit of nylon gauze. The instructions made no sense at all, and I spent the next year, not as the editor of my own magazine, but thinking how it would be wiser not to but things sight unseen from the small ads of the Daily Mail.
So yes, I am spoilt sometimes now, but I don't expect it and hopefully my Mum knows how much I appreciate it, and her.
The television I had had for ten years, and it was one my brother's friend had given him, so how I don't know how old it was. I had a friend of a friend who was an ayslum seeker, who when he saw it laughed, and informed me his was much better! It was only small, and to read subtitles on it meant you had to leave the sofa and sit on the floor a couple of inches away.
Anyway, after an afternoon of struggling with daft instructions yesterday, I now have a brand new telly and video/dvd, which means I can eventually watch the free dvds I have collected from the papers.
Proably like most people, when first setting up a first home, everything I had was kindly given to me. The only things I needed to buy, my brother gave me the money for and I bought my cooker and fridge freezer second hand. I've mentioned before how touched I was that my family treated me buying my first flat in 1990 as a chance to give me presents in lieu of wedding presents. Very often I wonder what would happen if I suprised them all and got married now, hee hee?
As kids we were never really spoilt. Other children, with probably less money than we had, always had more and bigger and better presents at Christmas than we did, for this I thank my parents. It wasn't until after my Dad had died that I learnt that he had paid for children in India to have their cateracts removed with the money they would have spent on us. A wiser use of the money than on the latest games we'd have seen on the telly, only for those gifts to be shoved under the beds by early in the New Year.
We did get spending money, I can't remember how much, but I do remember that if I saved up for two weeks I could afford a book which they used to sell at Moor End Post Office.
I must have once had ambitions to be Rupert Murdoch when I was about eight, because I saw an advertisment in the paper for a duplicater. It cost £4.99 plus p&p. Dad said he would loan me the money but that I would have to wash and wipe the pots and clean the car for a whole year. When it came I was so excited only to find it consisted of an oblong wooden frame, a bottle of ink, a metal pole and a bit of nylon gauze. The instructions made no sense at all, and I spent the next year, not as the editor of my own magazine, but thinking how it would be wiser not to but things sight unseen from the small ads of the Daily Mail.
So yes, I am spoilt sometimes now, but I don't expect it and hopefully my Mum knows how much I appreciate it, and her.
