Finish work, eat, slump, channel flick, sleep. Most of my evenings followed this pattern until my partner took the drastic action of cutting the plug off the TV, brandishing it wildly like the scalp of a confounding enemy.

I was initially horrified - "I need the telly for work!" "Gok Wan is not work" "He is! He's part of the zeitgeist! I'm a writer and I need to be connected" - but giving up television was a smart decision.

Instead of restricting our conversations to what needs cleaning, who is doing what at the weekend and "Where did you put the thing?", we have talked more about what makes us happy, where we want our lives to be and taken the time to listen to each other. I can't remember the last time we had a row. Living in Brighton meant we could make the most of the late summer evenings and started taking long walks along the seafront. I can't say it has made me much fitter, but it has made me feel healthier.

Mealtimes have become more of an event, instead of a necessary break in the day to consume food. We choose new recipes to cook for each other, try different dishes that had previously been put off for "taking too long" and enjoy it all much more than the usual stressful half hour of making something - anything - before EastEnders starts.

After a few weeks, I found not watching the news incredibly frustrating - especially if I was working on a news desk the next day - so the plug was reattached with the condition that we would only watch things we are genuinely interested in. Like a couple from the 1950s, we now go through the TV guide and pick specific programmes, instead of mindlessly channel surfing. Staying off the telly will be a challenge as the winter nights draw in, but I feel I have so much more time in the evenings that I'm keen to keep it up.