Now I know we have been here before but with six of us living in the cottage food shopping has become a nightmare. We had it sorted when there was only two of us, it was something Christine did by herself while I sat in the coffee shop and had an Americano with an Apricot Croissant. A good allocation of duties I thought!


But now it’s shopping for six and I have been recruited to help. No longer do we wander down the market to buy our weekly supply of vegetables which even with Christine’s love of all things green still only just about fills a carrier bag. The local pork butcher has seen a big dip in his trade no longer getting our £12 a week for a two person roast, some sausages and a few chops. Our bread and cheese no longer comes from the local deli or our wine from the local merchant, instead we go to Tescos.


That’s the same Tescos that I refused to shop at in an attempt to ruin their profits and force them into closing. Which seeing as we were only shopping for the two of us did not seem to have any noticeable impact but we can but try! And whilst on the subject of Tescos has anyone else noticed how confusing they make their half price offers, I know I am getting on in years but I am not easily confused, that is until I go into Tescos. I do wonder if it’s part of their company policy to boost profits. For instance this week there was a half price offer on Hardy’s Chauvignon Blanc and as most people know I am quite partial to a glass of wine, only after the school bus has passed of course, so I pick up a couple and add them to the trolley. A good deal, or so I thought!


I realise later that I have been charged full price for these two bottles and return to the store in Beverley to look at the offer again and sure enough it still says “Half Price”. The problem of course is in the small print, the offer is for Hardy’s Chauvignon Blanc but mixed on the shelf above the offer is indeed some Hardy’s Chauvignon Blanc but also some Hardy’s Semillon Chardonnay both having the same label design except the words Chauvignon Blanc being replaced by Semillon Chardonnay and these of course are not half price. Deliberate company policy or what? I leave you to decide.


But that is nothing to do with today’s posting. We are now shopping for six which means instead of picking odd and ends from here and there we have a very large trolley. Not even one of the shallow trolleys, we now need a very deep very big trolley and these are even more difficult to push in a straight line than the shallow ones. But even that is not the point of the story, it’s the amount of food we get through that is hard to believe. We arrive home with dozens of bags of shopping, spend the next hour or so finding somewhere to put it all and then what happens, Amber walks in the kitchen to tell us we have run out of shortbread for her to have with her afternoon cup of tea. Run out! Run out! We can’t be out of anything we have just picked something from every counter in Tescos.


The next day we are down the shop again getting everything we have forgotten. The problem is people keep eating whatever it is we have brought in, if we all stopped eating for a few days maybe we could get on top of situation. There must be somewhere that does lessons in how to shop for six, we need help.


But it isn’t even just the shopping. I know it’s hard to believe but Christine has been baking! It certainly surprises me that I can write a phrase like ‘Christine has been baking’, forty odd years we have been together and suddenly Christine has been baking. When we got the new Range Cooker I knew it was only a matter of time until scones and sausage rolls became a regular feature of our diet, what I didn’t anticipate is that it would take getting on for two years and that there would be six of us eating them.


So last week a tray of a dozen scones come out the oven and naturally we need to try them whilst they are hot so that’s six gone followed by one each after lunch and that’s it, scones all gone. The Drop Scones got no further than the plate as they came out of the frying pan, six people sampling them made short work of a bowl full of batter and even the dozen Blueberry Muffins only lasted into the next day. Christine has decided baking is pointless as people only eat whatever she bakes as soon as it comes out the oven. So she has stopped.


Well the shopping is all put away, fridges and freezers are again bursting with food, the school bus has passed and we are settling down in the Garden Room with our full price bottles of wine, all’s well with the world. Then in walks Joe, who is making some Brownies and tells us we are now out of cocoa.


I top up my glass and go looking for a cracker to have with a little cheese while I read my book and wait for our evening meal. Guess what? We are out of crackers, I top up my glass again and eat the cheese by itself. We will get the hang of this soon, perhaps.

So where is it to be Barcelona, New York, Paris, The Orient Express or somewhere else. Well before I go into that lets just look at the occasion. Our 40th wedding anniversary.


It’s hard to believe forty years married and Christine still only forty five! I have had a word with her and suggested that the facts don’t stack up and that she must come clean about her age, she can’t expect to be believed as forty five. If you are keeping up with the blog you know she only receives her pension because of an error by someone at the Pension Office who has entered her date of birth incorrectly! Or so she says! Christine, can I say at this point has never been down the post office in her slippers to collect her pension, it’s paid direct into her bank account. That way no one else in the village knows she’s a pensioner.


Never-the-less she has decided to accept that she may have been economical with the truth about her age and has decided to accept fifty if pushed but would rather stick with forty nine. To try and confuse the issue to cover the age problem she now wants to mix and match wedding anniversaries and make this one our diamond wedding instead of ruby. Doesn’t like rubies you see but loves diamonds.
Her reasoning being that we may not make fifty years so why can’t we have the anniversary that we like now and have the one we don’t like in ten years time if we make it. When I ask her about the ‘if we make it’ bit she is not considering the big retirement home in the sky scenario it’s more to do with can she put up with me at home for ten more years without getting a divorce.

Putting up with me! I can’t believe it! As I have said on numerous occasions I am the most reasonable person I know, if there’s any 'putting up with' to be done it should be ..............!


So forty years, it’s hard to believe. But that’s forty years married. We actually started going out together on 22 November 1963, the night JFK was assassinated. We were, in fact, both staying in on that night but after the assassination the only two TV channels about in those days stopped all normal programmes so we both went out and met up.
Isn’t fate amazing?

So you see it’s Lee Harvey Oswald’s actions that are responsible for this current confusion over rubies, diamonds and why Christine was in the Locarno dance hall that night when she was only six years old but looking more like sixteen.


That brings me to the point that whatever anniversary it is I am sure Christine would like a few days away and to be honest so would I, we need to build up our strength for our upcoming five weeks in the Bahamas! It’s a hard life but someone has to do it. So where shall we go?


Barcelona? Probably not, we will get all the sunshine we need in The Bahamas and although there are obviously some good shops there, Christine got everything she needs from Meadowhall last week. So that’s Barcelona out.


The Orient Express? I don’t think so. The last time Christine went on a train she said she wasn’t going to do that again. Mind you it was only between Beverley and Hull and then only because her car was in for service but she wasn’t impressed. So trains are out.


Paris? We have never been to Paris so it’s a possibility, but Paris should be in springtime and in any case it’s full of French people. So I think that’s off till next spring.


That leaves New York. It was almost certain to be New York but following the security alert and new check in procedures I don’t believe we should risk a flight to the USA just yet. Nothing to do with the cost you appreciate.


Having rejected all my original ideas it only leaves one place, The Lake District. A few days in a nice hotel in Grassmere, what more can anyone want. Feeling very satisfied with myself I book the break and look forward to this coming week end.


On Tuesday night I am out with Kev and the Tuesday crowd down the Corner House in Beverley and I happen to mention that I won’t be here next week as I am taking Christine to the lakes for our 40th wedding anniversary. “Very nice” says Kev “the Italian lakes are superb” and he starts telling me of places to go. I explain that I mean the Lake District in Cumbria and he is gobsmacked. This was followed by a tirade, I only remember words like 40th, tight arse, must be joking, your having a laugh and plenty more that I cannot print here. I set off for home deflated.


But Christine does love the Lakes and we haven’t been this year yet so it will be Grassmere, Skelwith Bridge, Lucy’s coffee shop in Ambleside, walks in Grizedale forest and around Rydal Water and we will come back refreshed. Either that or I’ll get a severe ear bashing or worse when I tell Christine where we are going. I think I'll forget to mention the other places I looked at. I'll let you know how it goes if I'm still around.

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

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!

So it’s been and gone. The opening of the West Wing was yesterday. Lots of planning had taken place. The garden room doors were to be opened on the garden, tables with parasols where dotted around, portable gazebos were in place to keep the sun at bay. Everything was ready for an afternoon and evening in the garden. And what happens..... It rains.


This is England, what do you expect, heat wave one week cold and rainy the next. But not only did it rain it was undoubtedly the worst day of this summer, we couldn’t have picked a day this bad had we tried. Early Sunday morning sitting in the garden room watching the rain fall was a little depressing especially for Christine who had put a lot of work into a garden party. But plans had to be adjusted, it was definitely going to be an indoor do. Did it work? Of course, it was a good do. Excellent food and good friends, what more do you need.


Excellent food! Now that’s not something you hear from me too often when Christine prepares a meal. Nothing wrong with the cooking it’s just that we have, as you know, complete differences in what makes a good meal. Christine is all about healthy and I like, but don’t get very often, stodge. But what can I say the new all singing and dancing cooker came into its own with, of course some help from Christine.


Before the day, I had looked at the proposed menus for the buffet, there was salmon and ham along with various salads and one or two other things. So I was thinking down to the deli for some ham and a few tins of John West from Tescos and salads from M&S and that’s it. Didn’t seem too inspiring but it’s not my place to intervene in the cookery department so I get on with deciding how much booze we need.


When the buffet table is laid I wander in to see what’s on offer and am a little surprised to say the least. Tin of salmon, not on your life but a whole salmon filletted and baked in the new oven, stuffed with something and decorated with prawns. Brilliant. Ham from the deli? Certainly not! Freshly baked hams from the new oven, sliced off the bone. There's freshly baked turkey breast to say nothing of freshly baked bread and pasta salads. It’s hard to believe there are even a couple of home baked lasagnas, the oven has been working overtime, as well as Christine. There’s all sorts of Italian meats, pates and tucked away at the end of the table a large bowl of sausages - I assume they are for me. An absolute feast, obviously Christine and the oven are getting on together, I bet it’s not long now until the first scones arrive. I wait in anticipation.....


But as everyone knows, the most important part of any ‘do’ is the booze. Give everyone enough to drink and the day will go OK. So as usual the success of the day depends upon me. I need to get the quantities right and make sure that no one is waiting for drinks.
So I assess the quantity situation and make a last trip to Tescos to top up the stocks to make sure we don’t run out, and then I get Joe and Amber together to give them their final training session on how to top up drinks and serve nibbles. For this they are to receive a small additional payment on top of their pocket money. As it turns out Joe and Amber are joined by Amelia and do a sterling job, so well in fact that from a start at 2.00pm there were very few people left standing by around 9.00. The kids did a great job dishing out wine, beers even mixing gin and tonics, gin and oranges and even spritzers. I last saw them sitting on Joe’s bed counting their money which seemed to be a lot more than the miserly sum I had paid them. It appears most people thought I was a skinflint and gave them tips for keeping their glasses topped up. The kids were very happy.


As I said it was a great success, mainly down to me using all my project managment skills to estimate the required quanty of booze. It’s easy, get the black book and list the people coming and then put next to each person an amount of booze based on knowledge of what each person drinks then add a couple eaxtra and that’s it.


Did it work? Well maybe I over estimated here and there but it is better to be on the too much side than not enough, leaving us with a plentiful stock of wine and beer. I am also left with a lot of soft drinks, our friends obviously don't drink too many soft drinks even though it was a Sunday afternoon.


The alcohol won't be a problem though - Alex and Dave are still with us for another week.