It’s hard to believe but Alex, Dave and Joe and Amber the grandkids go back to The Bahamas this weekend. They have been with us since June and the time has simply gone too quickly. When they arrived it seems like they will be here forever but now suddenly it is time to go home.


So what have we done over the summer to make the time go so quickly? Well what we haven’t done is go to the Lake District for our usual week's holiday, the first time we have missed The Lakes in the past seven or eight years but we have promised ourselves to go next year. Dave of course doesn’t come, he prefers to stay at home and work. He struggles to see why anyone living in The Bahamas would pay money to go to the Lake District for a holiday. But we enjoy it the kids are already planning next year's walks as they want to graduate to a full day walk around Grizedale Forest. Christine and I may wish to only do part of that walk before popping down the pub and meeting up with them in Lucy’s Coffee Shop in Ambleside later.


We also haven’t had many days out, I think the trip to Hornsea beach on the worst day of the summer was our only trip out. This is getting to be more of what we haven’t done. Christine and Alex haven’t been round the shops too often, although one or two new outfits seem to have arrived. But interestingly Alex did let something slip.


As you will know if you are keeping up, Christine, for various reasons has decided to make the food shopping an ‘I’ thing. Thursday morning she's off down for the food and I am not invited. That’s OK, I'm quite happy with the set up as Christine and I in a supermarket just don’t get on.
Now I always thought that getting the food seemed to be a long job but only discovered why when Alex, who went with Christine for the food, mentioned that they had also been to Jaegar and Laura Ashley amongst other shops in Beverley and finished up at Nero's Coffee shop where Christine apparently has a club card. Because of her frequent visits she has qualified for quite a few free coffees. I, of course have never been in the place.


But the main point here is that when we discuss why I never get to go to Nero's with her she explains that she needs Thursday mornings as an ‘I’ thing to get a break from me. Me! It was me that wanted to do 'I' things. Why would Christine need a break from me? I am the most easygoing person I know. If anything it must surely be the other way round. When I mention this to the family they all side with Christine and someone mentions Victor Meldrew and they all crack up laughing. Why? Is it me? I don’t understand.


Getting back to the point of this story, what have we done this summer? I think it’s down to two things - eating and drinking and of the two drinking has been the more prominent.

Dave and I have had three or four very heavy Tuesday nights with Kev and his friends and their guitars in the Corner House in Beverley and made even heavier on the night that Richard, my ex-colleague and still good friend, joined us. Wednesday that week disappeared and the benefit of being retired was immediately obvious. But it was mainly the everyday drinking at home that took its toll. Three or four bottles a wine between the four of us was usual rather than the exception with maybe the odd bottle of beer thrown in as well. Couple this with us having ‘put me ons’ each night before our meal and it is easy to see why I need to go back on a diet again.


So there we have it. We seem to have whiled away the summer enjoying having the family around and making the most of our new extended cottage. But now it’s time for the them to go home. School beckons for the kids, Alex needs to get ready for a move to her new house and Dave needs to get down the gym. Also Christine needs a rest, she has mentioned, when ironing yet another pile of clothes that next year they should bring Dawnette, the house keeper from The Bahamas, over with them for the summer.


But we can’t all be too sad, we are going out there for a shortish stay at the end of September and then back again for Christmas. It’s a hard life for us retired old codgers but some one has to do it. It may as well be us!