So here we are, two years into retirement and I think it is time to see how far I have got with achieving my objectives. I think I set off with two main priorities, firstly to be an ‘I’ and secondly to get rid of daytime TV namely LK Today and Buster the dog.


A review of last week alone will clearly show the results of the first objective. Have I played golf? No! Have I played bowls? No! Have I been out anywhere by myself? No! What have I done all week? Been a chauffeur that’s what.


Monday we spent all day finishing off our Christmas shopping and then on the night Christine goes off to yoga by herself. I have refused to take up yoga as it would seem we are joined at the hip. But at least Christine drove herself.


Tuesday morning I drop Christine in Beverley, she is going out to lunch with her friend Vivien. Very nice, I had a cheese sandwich. I have to drop her off because she needs me to pick her up later to go into Hull to complete our Christmas shopping again. Tuesday night Christine is off once more to Yoga, this is beginning to take over her life. At least she drops me off at the Cornerhouse so she does an element of chauffering. It is Christmas songs tonight with Kevin and the crowd, a very good night and what’s more an ‘I’ night Christine has gone home to watch TV before picking me up later.


Wednesday evening Christine is going out with a few girls from not the last place she worked but the place before that. Half a dozen of them worked together for many years and have kept in touch so that’s good. This time the chauffeur duties are split, Shirley’s husband Roy drops them all off at Dacre Arms in Brandesburton for their meal and guess who get the pick up and deliver home job? Correct, it’s me.


So at 10.30 on Wednesday night I am just going into the Dacre Arms to collect them, only to find that they are in the middle of a quiz. Question:- Which detective was involved in the ‘Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’? As everyone knows this is of course Agatha Christie’s Poirot; everyone that is except Christine and Joanne who are confident it’s Charlie Farley and Piggy Malone the guys made famous by the Two Ronnies, Barker and Corbett, needless to say they didn’t win the quiz. So I finally get home just after midnight having been a chauffer yet again.


Thursday we go into Beverley to complete our Christmas shopping again!


Which brings us to Friday,and it’s a double whammy. Lunchtime is Christine’s lunch with the last people she worked for, I am again driving but at least I am invited. It takes me to be a ‘we’ to get invited out to lunch. But that’s not the end of Friday. Friday evening Christine is having a night out with all her friends, dinner at Maureen’s house. So I drop her off and then once again at midnight I am picking her up, in the meantime I am home watching TV.


I think it’s easy to see that being an ‘I’ hasn’t happened by any stretch of the imagination and at the moment Christine is sitting in the breakfast room watching Paul O’Grady with Buster his dog. The only claim I can make is that LK Today no longer appears in a morning. Is that success? I don’t think so, but at least the school bus has gone by so I can get the wine out. I am just pouring the first glass when Christine appears to plan tomorrow’s trip to York to finish the Christmas shopping.