Dear LPG readers,

Do you remember the days when there was rarely more than one television per household and there were only five channels to choose from?

I am a grandma who lives with my son and his family and it all works really well.  I often hear stories which tell of the problems with the daughter-in-law but, after 7 years of living in this way which have included this past year of being home all the time, we are still quite happy.

Lockdown has helped me to feel more useful, as being there for my grandchildren during home schooling worked very well while their parents were working from home; even though both of my grandchildren are old enough to be teaching me a thing or two when it comes to the subjects they had to study.  I was just in charge of making sure that the study happened most of the time.

But that is all over for them now while I am still locked down to an extent.  They are back at school, and mum and dad are at work more often while most of the day centres that I used to attend are still locked down.  I decided I needed something to look forward to and my solution to keeping myself occupied was to get a new television.

I settled on an upmarket model, and I must admit that I think my grandchildren are secretly jealous of my new, state-of-the-art HD smart bedroom companion.  I can tell because they spend a lot more time with me these days, but when I have the house to myself I like nothing better than to make myself a nice cup of tea, have some cake or a biscuit or too (which are much too sweet for me), and watch my favourite television program on the big telly downstairs… and there lies the problem.

I have asked many a time when they are around, and sometimes there are rolled eyes, but one of the four will help me out.  I should explain that they have cable in the living room and normal Freeview in the kitchen while I now have Freeview HD upstairs.  This means that when I am transitioning during the advert breaks, I never get to the telly I want to watch next and find the right channel on time without missing the beginning of the next part of the programme.  Nearly every channel on each of the televisions has a different number when it comes to finding the program that you left on the last telly you were watching?  To make it even more annoying, my rush to get it right nearly always guarantees my missing the first few minutes of the program because, in my mini-panic I always take longer to find my place. 

I went to the internet, where I know you can see most television programs after the event, but there is also some information about the numbers and other things. Going through them and making a list of the channels that are important to me has helped a little and just in case I am not the only person who is completely confused by this, I have asked LPG to link readers to my findings.  I hope it helps…

HE, Croydon

HE shares what she has found…

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