Good morning Victor Meldrew here. Yes it appears it’s official I have turned into Victor Meldew or so says everyone here at home. I don’t believe it of course but there you go. But just this morning, maybe.


It’s Monday so it should be a good morning with me sitting in the garden room watching everyone going off to work but this morning our cottage seems very big and quiet. Alex, Dave and the grandkids Joe and Amber left yesterday to go back to The Bahamas leaving me and Christine to out own devices. Worrying! And to make it worse it’s raining.


But we shouldn’t grumble too much, we've had a super summer with them and we are going out there again at the end of September for a short break, only five weeks this time. Can’t wait! Sunshine, the odd Kalik beer and maybe a hurricane or two but hopefully not.


This last weekend Joe a friend of Alex and Dave came up for an overnighter. Anna, his wife, and his kids are in Finland staying with grandparents for the summer so being at a loose end he came up to us. I have met Joe before quite briefly when they all lived in Holland but this is the first time I have had anything of a conversation with him and must say for a Spurs fan he’s not too bad a bloke.


Just imagine Sunday morning - Christine has prepared the breakfast, wallpaper paste, cereal, muesli and juice to be followed by bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms and tomatoes and then to the toast, croissants and preserves. Joe has arrived and we have a breakfast like this! I must ask him to pop round more often. So where do we start, maybe cereal, some muesli or with a little wallpaper paste perhaps or maybe just a glass of juice. Not Joe, straight in for a breadcake, fill it with sausage, egg and bacon, lashings of brown sauce, polish it off and start again. Man after my own heart and what’s more no comment from Christine. I, of course, have to follow suit just to keep him company. I would naturally have rather stuck with the wall paper paste and a slice of toast but what can you do.


Later on we are all sitting in the garden room and somehow the subject of food shopping come up. I mention that you can’t buy fruit and vegetables from Tesco as they have always gone off before you get them home so you buy them from M&S but you can’t buy clingfilm from M&S because it’s perforated and totally impossible to tear which puts in on a par with the clingfilm from Sainsburys who do have a butchers, unlike Tescos. Now just when I’m feeling particularly sad for knowing about such things, Joe, who has travelled extensively mentions that he has been in many villages around the world smaller than some of the new supermarkets and that food shopping should be a pleasurable experience if you have the time to do it.


Use the butchers and the bakers and the newsagents and only get what you must from the supermarket, spend time looking for the best shop for each item. Again, same views as myself, as long as, of course it is not me doing the shopping. I look at Christine and her eyes have glazed over and her mind's gone elsewhere, I don’t say anything or food shopping will suddenly become an ‘I’ thing with me being the ‘I’.


The conversation carried on about serious stuff like ‘can Spurs be that bad again’, ‘can anyone stop Chelsea’ when the subject of women’s handbags arose. How, once opened they become the Tardis containing everything from makeup to a mobile phone from a kitchen sink to a nuclear power plant and it’s all jumbled together. But it’s worse than that, consider the queue at the checkout, the man buying whatever has checked to make sure he has his wallet, ensured the credit card is in the wallet and has his method of payment ready when asked for his dosh.


Now take the woman! What can I say. I can only assume being asked for the payment comes as a surprise because that is the first time it registers that she needs some money. The bag opens and out comes the kitchen sink, the phone, some rods from the power plant, everything but the purse but it’s in there somewhere. Eureka the purse appears now we look to see how much cash there is or do we need the credit card, which card to use, no there’s enough cash and then it’s the search through the bit that holds the change for the odd eighty seven pence. It drives me potty. Not that any of that applies to Christine of course who has only on one occasion failed to find her purse after checking out all her food at Tescos. It’s just a woman thing in general.


Well there we have it, it is probably right I am turning into Victor Meldrew. Must make an effort to lighten up