The bed's covered in carrier bags, not just any carrier bags but Jaeger, Monsoon, Next, Gap and Laura Ashley to say nothing of Marks & Spencer. Dresses, skirts, shoes, sandals and tops all in various colours are spread all around the bedroom. Christine has had a good day.


Christine decided she needed to go to Meadowhall, which for the uninitiated is a shopping centre the size of a small town. It’s takes a dedicated shopper, which of course Christine is, to get round all the shops in a day but she needed to go.


What surprises me more than just a little is that Alex, our daughter, who lives in The Bahamas and also loves shopping has been over here with us since June and Christine picks a couple days after she has gone back home to go shopping. I can only assume she realised there would be a lot of bags to carry which she sees solely as my department.


I must say though that if shopping is a ‘we’ things and I must point out here that I don’t see why it should be, then I prefer this type of shopping where I can sit in Starbucks and Christine can wander off and just keep bringing bags back for me to look after.


Anyway we are up at the crack of dawn, well maybe not the crack of dawn but still quite early for retired people and out on the motorway by just after 8.30am. As the car heads down the slip road and I join the motorway going south with 'Wake up to Wogan' on the radio, all I need is a cup of coffee in the dashboard holder and a bacon sandwich in my hand and I could be off to work. Except that Christine is making her list of what she wants and believes I am interested in hearing about it.


Parking at Meadowhall is normally OK but because of the thousands of people there, it’s usually a ten minute or so walk from the first available parking bay to the shops, but being retired we can go on a Wednesday and be there at 10.00am. Parking bays all over the place are spare, I don’t know where to park, there are too many free bays. So I drive round to the front of the shops and there on the front of the parking grid is a spare bay. It’s pretty tight to get in but it’s on the front row so I need to see if I can get in.


Christine gives me one of her looks that suggest I have lost my marbles and passes a comment about parking in a bay where we can get in and out of the car. But this is the front row and I have never been on the front row before. So she has to get out and I then back into the space with just enough room for me to get out. As I am squeezing out of my side, a couple who had just driven up and parked in the empty row behind me pass by with the woman making some comment to Christine about men drivers. What! Is it me! It’s the front row! How often do you get to park here.


So we are up and running and off to the shops. We don’t even stop for morning coffee because Christine has work to do. In the meantime, I go and look for the place to have lunch. We meet up and after half an hour she’s off again. Half an hour! She always takes an hour's break for lunch even if we're at home doing nothing, but she has serious work to do.


We have to make arrangements to meet at set times and places which Christine points out is inconvenient as she doesn’t know where she will be, because unlike ever other person in the world we only have one mobile phone between the two of us, which of course is my fault because as you will know the one we have is Christine's and I should have got another when my company phone was confiscated when I retired. The point I'm trying to make, that this is the first time in eight months I have needed a phone, is missed as she is off again to the next shops.


Finally, at about 4.00pm, she returns to Starbucks with another bag and suggests that this may be the last and perhaps we should be thinking of getting home. One last gulp of coffee, pick up all the bags and we are off before she can change her mind. As we head for the exit one last thought about Debenhams crosses her mind but it’s too far away, even at ‘45’ a girl gets tired eventually. So it’s of to the car park and there’s the car standing by itself on the front row. First car you come to as you leave the shops. Brilliant. No one's grumbling now, with all the bags to carry, the nearer the car the better.


We load up and we are off home, two minutes later Christine is fast asleep and only wakes up as we pull into our drive an hour an a half later. No problem, at least I have been able to listen to 'Talk Sport' all the way home without any chatter about shops, but perhaps shop talk may have been more intelligent than some of the people who ring in to the radio.


So now we're home, I’m taking time out to read the paper but Christine, now refreshed from her sleep is ‘trying on’. Everything is spread out across the bedroom, it looks like we bought an entire shop. “How does this look?”; “Does this look OK with this?”. How do I know? I’m trying to see if Ashley Cole has finally gone to Chelsea and which matches are on what channel tonight.


Where is Alex when you need her. Back in The Bahamas, that’s where. Still, not long before we are there as well and I am sure Christine will look as good as usual in all the new clothes. I open a bottle of Becks and settle down to watch Arsenal, it’s not a bad life being retired.