It only dawned on me this morning that there is another visual item that reminds me of my Dad and I was surprised I didn’t think of it yesterday.
It is a small transistor radio. After my Dad retired, well even before that, my Dad would spend all his spare time sitting on ‘his’ chair on the front patio reading the paper, or thinking and listening to the ABC on his small transistor radio. It would be on all day. Then when he went to bed, which was always quite early, he would listen to his radio again, quite loudly as he was a bit deaf in later years and didn’t like wearing his hearing aids. It would still be on long after he went to sleep.
I don’t know how mum put up with it for all those years. It certainly drove me and Mr A crazy when they would come to stay. Dad was definitely a man set in his ways and it didn’t matter that he was not in his own home he still continued to do what he wanted when he visited us.
Maybe that is why I am not comfortable with background silence. I am more used to it now but I do remember when I lived alone in my twenties I always had the tv or radio on in the background. Even now some mornings when I am working from home and Mr A is taking Miss A to school I have to put music on because the house is too quiet.