I know. It’s hard to believe but I have now been retired for eight months so I thought this was a good time to review 2006 and look back at some of the aims I had in December to see if I have, in fact, achieved anything at all. So to start here’s a quick review of the major events of 2006.......


January 6 - The record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season officially ends as Tropical Storm Zeta blows itself out. This was also the day Christine and I arrived in the Bahamas for our ten week or so break. How good is that for project management on my part? (A role, you will know, I played for ten years before retirement).


February 22 - Over £53.1 million is stolen during the Securitas depot robbery, the largest ever cash robbery in the United Kingdom and on the same day the one billionth song is purchased from Apple iTunes. Now I know that in Session 54 I suggested that music downloads were costing me £100 a throw but no one can pin the robbery on me.


March 26 - The ban on smoking in public places such as bars and restaurants comes into effect in Scotland. I just found this item amusing not for what it was - a ban on smoking, except for the places which are excempt.
Prisons: prisoners can smoke as much as they like, the justification I can only assume is that the more prisoners who die from smoke related issues the cheaper the cost of running prisons. And we all know how tight a Scotsman is so that makes as much sense as anything else I write .

Care Homes are also excempt, presumably for the same reason as prisons, the less people in Care Homes the less the cost and if one old codger forgets to put out their cigarette there may be a full home less to support. Would that be classed as a result?
One area that did bother me was that police interview rooms were also excempt. This will surely lead to the police popping out to arrest someone and bringing them back to be interviewed whenever they want a fag. Seems a bit rough on the people being ‘brought in’ but it could be a job prospect for retired pensioners like myself, we could work eight hour shifts making ourselves available for questioning.


April 5 - A swan with Avian Flu is discovered in Cellardyke in Fife, Scotland, the first case in the United Kingdom. See, we admit it, a case of bird flue and we report it. Unlike in The Bahamas. Whilst out there in February a number of flamingos were found dead on one of the out islands so in order not to panic the Bahamians or in fact the rest of the world the goverment declared that they had all died of old age. Having said that I feel I must qualify this with two comments, firstly it is hard to imagine a Bahamian bothering to panic about anything and secondly the whole story of the flamingos could have been a figment of Eli's (our editor) imagination after a shed load of cans down the BBYC one night. The BBYC (Big Boys Youth Club)being a bar he has a stake in which must become part of a story some time.


May 20 - Finland's Lordi wins the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest held in Athens. The monster-like band earns the most points ever given in the fifty-one year-old history of the contest. Just another thing that Christine and I don’t agree on, I watch it and think Terry Wogan is superb with his remarks and his sniping at all the other countries and their entries. Christine of course is on a different level and won't waste her time watching such drivel.


July 23 - American Floyd Landis wins the Tour de France by taking more drugs than some of the other riders. What sort of sport is that, bit like athletics I suppose. I’m thinking of introducing ‘time trials’ to find the fastest pensioner over one hundred yards to the paper shop wearing their slippers. To ensue we don't have a drug problem in this new sport all drugs will of course be acceptable, most of us need something to keep us going.


So what have I achieved? My plans were to play more golf but I have had only one game. Crown green bowling was on the list and I haven’t had a game at all. The men’s walking club from pub to pub has operated without me all year and even the football on the TV has taken second place to all the decorating to say nothing of Christine’s make-over programmes.


Wallpaper paste is taken for breakfast every morning now, the poached eggs with bacon and a sausage on the side being a distant memory. Scones have still not been produced even after the introduction of the new cooker. All financial matters have become my resposibility after fifteen years of being looked after by Christine and the use of the Black Book to her is still a mystery.


So have their been any achievements. Yes! Daytime TV has gone. No Lorraine Kelly, No Richard and Judy, No Buster, just ten minutes of BBC News and Weather in a morning over our wallpaper paste.



That’s it then, my retirement so far. Maybe not a lot to show for eight months effort but now most of the work around the house is finished so I can concentrate on changing things. But maybe it would be easier to simply go back to work.