Our first ever hi-fi as a married couple

After almost 17 years together and just over 14 years married, Cathy and I have purchased our first hi-fi as a couple.

It's strange that we haven't bought one before, given how often we have music on. We bought (and played out) several of the small all-in-one units in our kitchen over the years. But this was our first 'front room hi-fi'.

It's taken us a while to get it. We decided to get one last year as a Christmas present to each other.

This is what we were replacing.

The tapedeck was my Dad's, bought back in the 80s, and as dead as a Monty Python parrot. The Pioneer amplifier I bought for a tenner from a friend in about 1993, but as it had originally been his family's stereo, then his, that must date from the early 80s too. The CD player and record player I bought in my first term in my first year at Uni.

Cathy helped me carry the CD player home from the train station to the house I was lodging in in Llandaff North. We'd just started going out. She thought I was crazy blowing my money like that, but as my diet was predominantly Heinz spaghetti hoops on toast, I could afford it. (I didn't like using the temperamental gas oven in my student house. You had to reach right into the back to light it with a match and I was afraid it would blow up and burn my arm off. Hobs were safer. I ate a lot of hoops.True story.)

I bought the record player a week later, because I was a muso and I liked to buy limited edition coloured vinyl singles. I presume the turntable still works. I haven't used it in years. The CD player is okay - occasionally sticky. The amp fades in and out and you have to twiddle the volume knob to get it to function. I'll probably freecycle them as someone could use them.

Anyway, that was about half our lifetimes ago. So, today we went and bought a micro hi-fi that cost less than my CD player separate did back in the day. It can play CDs and you can plug a USB into it - a technology that was simply science fiction when our old hi-fi was built.

It's freed up some space, which was easily filled. It sounds amazing. Happy Christmas to us 10 and a bit months later!