So last night was blackout night for me & the boy – just settling down to watch some Masterchef and suddenly, plans change! No disaster just get the candles from under the sink and stick Smooth FM on via the mobile – I’m strangely used to the dark since the new light sensor in the office photocopier room ignores me daily, despite repeatedly stamping my feet like some teenage astronaut.So we avoided the art of conversation by turning instead to competition, an UNO grudge-match – after I’d secured my win and the electricity had returned I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a missed opportunity, the opportunity to just talk.
Don’t get me wrong, me and the boy are always talking, and often have the best most intense & impassioned conversations when we’re tipsy, really get our views off our chest. Last night, when I said “So what do we do now?” the boy replied “talk?” which we did for twenty minutes or so until card games grabbed our attention. I guess it’s that feeling of anticipation, a lack of concentration caused by the wait for power to return. But perhaps we should have taken this opportunity to just converse, the election date was announced yesterday, what a corker of a topic to throw out there. And Stylist magazine, in the run-up have started a weekly cut out and keep page (pg 33) documenting and explaining the key policies each party are promoting, and what the competition thinks. Most helpful for someone like me, who needs to see things in clear black and white and simple digestible language.
They've started with Labour, I could have shown this to the boy and thrown it open for discussion. But well, I’ve talked about politics with everyone and anyone lately, it’s apparently my new favourite conversation. Perhaps I’ve worn myself out on the subject and need to just sit back and switch on to what the media is spewing at me.
Anywho I digress, the point of this is that me & the boy have decided to make ‘blackout night’ a monthly affair (start off small), we won’t necessarily stick strictly to the candlelight, it gave us headaches but we will switch off our appliances and switch over to one another for conversation.
I think we’ll learn something from this new venture, if only how to better our previous UNO scores...
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I love this idea sister - what a nice thing to do. There was a piece on Womans hr yesterday on R4 about how we are surrounded by so much technology and distractions, that we often forget to communicate with those we are actually with. I am all for it. Turn off the phones, computor, TV, music etc and just be. We were lucky enough to both experience this when we went off for 5 weeks with our boys around France / Europe eh ? No distractions but time to be together. Love it sister - perhaps we should try to really be with our friends and families when we are with them too.
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