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.

How can you plan anything when women are involved, or maybe it is just that I go about things in the wrong way? Here I am, sitting in the garden room with the Black Book on my knee looking at jobs that need completing. Organised, you see, I have a list and I know what has to be done so all I need now is to know how long I have got. It’s easy, in the Black Book are some small jobs and some big jobs so all I need to do is select the right job for the time available and I am up and running.


It’s three o’clock in the afternoon so maybe I don’t want to start a large job but maybe a medium task can be completed before teatime (or evening dinner if you are posh) but it all depends on when tea will be ready.


So I set off to find Christine, she is in the dining room putting up Christmas decorations. Very tasteful decorations I must add, we are looking very discretely Christmassy at the moment. Nothing at all to do with me of course, my contribution was to go in the loft and find all the decorations collected over the past years. I do in fact start to help Christine by putting twinkling fairy lights around each of the windows that look out onto Main Street so that the villagers passing by can see that we were getting into Christmas. These are immediately removed as soon as she walks into the room to be replaced by a single wicker ball in each window. The balls, which have faded lights inside them were collected on one of our trips to Holland and do indeed look less ‘in your face’ and more chic than the twinkling lights I had at first put round the windows. I still didn’t really see anything wrong with the twinkling fairy lights but it seems they are not to be used, I wonder what they look like round the window in my shed, must give them a try.


This is the first Christmas I have been at home to watch the Christmas decorations going up and I quickly realise that this is another work of art similar to ‘dressing’ rooms. As the Christmas tree gets decorated and baubles and candles and Holly and Ivy appear on mantle pieces and window ledges I once again appreciate how much work Christine does that I have simply taken for granted in the past whilst working away from home. But that’s enough of that; it’s not even the point of the story.


Planning, that’s the point. How much time have I got left this afternoon and which job can I complete. So I ask the question “When will tea be ready, dear”, “When the potatoes are cooked” says Christine. When the potatoes are cooked, what sort of answer is that? Are we having baked or roasted? Maybe it’s chips but not likely, could be mashed or boiled. It tells me nothing.


“When do you think they will be ready” I ask only to be told “It depends when I put them in” and she carries on putting more Christmas decorations in the dining room. Is it me!


If this was just a one off then I might be able to cope but when I think about it I realise that this sought of answer is pretty standard. “When are we going to Beverley” I ask “When I have finished the ironing” says Christine. What help is that? Doesn’t she know I am trying to plan jobs from the Black Book? “How long will you be in Beverley” seems a simple question? “Depends where I park” comes the answer.


Christine wants a day shopping in York. “What time do you want to set off” I ask. “I just want to tidy round first”. It’s always the same. Maybe she has taken a leaf from the Project Managers handbook, never commit yourself to a deadline unless you have someone else to blame as it all goes wrong.


I don’t know what type of potatoes we are having or if in fact they have even reached the oven yet. So planning the next job seems too difficult. As I walk back to the garden room I notice the school bus go by. I open another bottle of wine, pick up the Ken Follett book I am currently reading and assume that tea will come along at some point. Probably after she has finished the Christmas decorations.

It’s Christine’s birthday and of course she still doesn’t look any older than whatever age she now claims to be. The problem is that it’s getting a little confusing and we are beginning to lose track. Christine’s birth certificate, as she has claimed many times shows an incorrect date and because of that she now receives a pension, bus pass and concessionary rates into most places we visit. All in error, Christine is quick to point out as she is nowhere near approaching the required age for these benefits, she tells me.


The problem is we have now lost track of whatever age she is supposed to be. I can only establish an approximate age by looking back through the Blog at previous postings. I think she may own up to somewhere around 55 although if she reads this I may have to alter that to 51 or 52 but the point of all this is that she still looks as good as ever. Something she of course puts down to healthy eating, walking and now yoga twice a week.


I, on the other hand, feel like I am beginning to fall apart. In the three weeks since we have been back from Barcelona I have been a regular visitor at the doctors and the dentist. I now have creams to loosen up a shoulder joint, anti-inflammatory tablets for my big toe plus antacid stomach tablets to say nothing of an x-rays on my neck and another on the big toe. All this is, of course on top of the fact that I have been suffering from bronchial pneumonia, or maybe just a heavy cold with a bad cough since we came home. Is there any wonder postings have been a little thin just lately.


I have also just booked an appointment with an orthopaedic guy in January to review the need for an operation on my toe and I haven’t even started on the dentist yet. One tooth out and today I am back for a filling.


If there is a worse experience than having a filling it can only be the settling of the bill after having the tooth filled. How anything so excruciatingly awful can cost so much is beyond me. On reflection it seems like the sort of profession that would have suited me, you strike fear into everyone that comes to see you and then charge them an arm and a leg for the privilege. I wonder why my careers master at school didn’t put this option to me instead of putting me in the ‘take any job you can get’ pile.


Having just re-read the above it strikes me that I have joined that band of people who start every conversation with “I’m 84 next year you know” and then tell you about their latest hospital visit and if you are not careful try to show you the scars. So in less than two years I have change from someone who never had time to be ill into an out and out pensioner discussing my aliments with any one who will listen. I am just checking the pot on the window sill to make sure we are not saving up for a pensioner’s bus trip to Bournemouth next year. I had better make sure I don’t go to the dentist wearing my slippers.


The reason for all my ailments, according to Christine is simple. Not enough vegetables, salads, fish and exercise not to mention yoga and of course she may be right but I am eating a lot more now than I did whilst at work. In those day’s the big breakfasts, sausage rolls in the middle lane of the M1, pork pies and three course evening meals, usually with chips were an ever day occurrence and I never saw the doctor and just about fitted one visit a year to the dentist for cleaning and polishing.


So is that the answer? Should I go back to eating ‘unhealthy’ food to keep healthy?

It’s a thought!!!

OK, so it’s been a while since the last posting. I’ve not been well, bronchial pneumonia you know, or possibly some sort of Asian flue or maybe just a heavy cold and serious cough. What ever it was struck me down as soon as we arrived home from Barcelona, it may of course have been due to the drop in temperature from a nice 20 degrees to something like 6 degrees when we landed. One night out with Kev and the crowd down the Cornerhouse in Beverley and then off to bed for four days, with another couple of days recovery before I felt ready to face the world.


But all’s well again now, that is all except for the catastrophe of our water heating system. When we arrive home my sister Margaret and her husband Howie, the flood victims from Hull who are staying with us whilst their house is restored, mention that the hot water is not what it should be. Having just arrived home and being rather weary and hungry I take no notice and carry on eating the hot, home made sausage rolls that Margaret has made ready for our return.


I do mention to Christine that maybe she should get the recipe and oven settings for the sausage rolls but as usual she pays no attention. I also point out that in the eighteen months or so since we have had this all singing and dancing range cooker only Margaret has managed to produce sausage rolls and scones. Maybe I didn’t put this very tactfully and Christine mutters something, probably unprintable about Margaret and goes off to study her Farrow and Ball paint colour chart, it seems we are back to decorating, her bathroom needs a ‘freshen up’ she says.


But that’s not the point of this posting, back to the hot water. As usual later that evening Christine goes off for her nightly bath and a few minutes later I am left in no doubt that there is a problem with the hot water. Two inches, if that, of warm water in the bottom of the bath with the tap now running cold seems to be a problem. “How can I get a bath in that” is a question that I obviously find difficult to answer “What’s wrong with the boiler” is a question that supposes I have taken a crash course as a heating engineer whilst we have been away in Barcelona. “I need more hot water than that” suggests that maybe I put the kettle on and put pans of water on all six rings of the range cooker, I knew it would come in useful at some time.


The outcome of course is a call the next morning to the heating engineers who come out and tell us we need some spare parts and whatever and it will take a few days to get it fixed.





This leaves us with a situation were we have enough hot water to have showers but not enough to fill the bath, and there lies the problem. The shower room is mine, Christine has never used the shower since its installation, always preferring the bath so for eighteen months or so this has therefore been my domain. Now I have never had a problem sharing so naturally the next evening Christine uses the shower and every thing is OK.


Well it is until the next morning when I go for my shower and here we get to the catastrophe caused by the lack of hot water, the poster of Kylie, the one in the boots has gone, it no longer has a place in middle of the wall outside the shower. I ask Christine what’s happened to the poster only to be told that if she couldn’t have a bath she certainly wasn’t going to have a shower with Kylie looking at her. Somehow I had never had that problem with her on the wall.


Mind you after a day out shopping with Margaret, Christine comes home with lots of bags of all descriptions and amongst them I notice a poster of George Clooney. This may of course be a Christmas present for her friend Vivien or someone, but if she thinks that’s going on the wall, well we will see.............!

Surprisingly we have been in Barcelona for over four weeks now and we have had only three trips into the town. The rest of the time we have spent around Gava Mar where Alex lives just whiling away the days and chilling. Mind you only the last trip to Barcelona centre went as planned.


On the first trip we had just arrived when we got called back to collect Joe from school as he was not very well, we have all had bugs and coughs. We also got called back from a local shopping centre, much to Christine’s disappointment, to collect Amber from school the next day.


The next trip to Barcelona was the interesting one, we acquainted ourselves with yet another hospital. I am not saying which of us caused the visit but it wasn’t me. Christine has forbidden me from saying any more. Suffice to say we were in a shop at the time, I think it had something to do with the price of the boots, even she was surprised and started to feel a little ‘giddy’.


From there circumstances just seemed to take over. I get Christine to sit down for a minute and up comes a guy who seems to be in charge and brings over a glass of water. He is now concerned about Christine’s wellbeing and can he help any more. It seems strange to me as I remember from my time at work if any one felt ill on the premises the first objective was to get them off the site too many forms to fill in otherwise.


Anyway out here it seems to be different. We are in El Court Ingles, a huge nine floor store in the Placa de Catalunya in the middle of Barcelona and the man decides he can’t let us leave the store without a visit to the in store doctor, “Health and Safety” he says. So we are taken to the doctor who can speak no English so an interpreter is called for. We are just in a shop remember.


So Christine is sat on an examination bed with the doctor taking her pulse and blood pressure and the interpreter is asking me questions. “Has she felt like this before”, how do I know, why not ask her, we are stood next to her. “When did it start” I don’t know she is just sitting here, ask her. “Is everything spinning around” ask her, she is just here. But then the big question “Does she drink” it’s 10am and Christine now manages to get a word in that the interpreter is still trying to interpret.


But still feeling a little ‘giddy’ and saying that it has nothing to do with the price of the boots the doctor will not discharge her, he calls in a nurse and instructs him to take us by taxi to the local hospital. Another hospital! It’s amazing how circumstances conspire against us in Barcelona, I have seen more hospitals and police stations in Barcelona than I have in England.


So here I am in the waiting room. Sick and seriously injured people are being wheeled from ambulances to the reception wards, relatives wailing, people shouting, no one seems to know what is going on, it’s chaos. Naturally I’m concerned about Christine especially when a nurse approaches me and in very broken English says “Need blood”. I say that I don’t need blood I am waiting for my wife. “Yes” she says “Need blood”. “My wife needs blood?” I ask to which she replies “Yes, need blood”.


I am a little surprised because when they took Christine away she was only feeling a little ‘giddy’. “How do you know our blood types are the same” I ask the nurse “Any type will do” she says. Now I am no medical man that’s for sure but I have watched Casualty and even Emergency Ward 10 and know that blood needs to match.


Fortunately to my rescue comes a little old guy with a large wad of cloth over his left ear which is getting redder by the minute who tells me that the hospital is short of blood and any one who is waiting for someone else rather than being ill or injured is being asked to donate blood. I could see his point as he seemed to be getting shorter on the blood supply by the minute.


I immediately think of Tony Hancock and his arm full of blood and much to the nurse’s disgust I suggest I am too harassed to consider giving blood, maybe later.


So there we are for the next three hours until a doctor is free to see Christine, we can’t leave as they have her medical card so she is sat on a trolley in a corridor in what we now realise is a casualty clinic with really serious injuries coming in pretty regularly.


But finally the doctor arrives and looks at the notes sent from the store doctor. “You have sea sickness” says the doctor, which comes as a surprise to Christine who lets the doctor know she has been nowhere near a boat in months. “It says here you have sea sickness” says the doctor who then turns to me and asks “Does she drink”.


Well that was the last straw, the doctor obviously hasn’t met Christine before and he obviously didn’t realise that someone looking so refined could lose it quite so quickly. “I’ve been here three hours” she says quite forcibly “I only felt ‘giddy’ this morning” she continues “Now I’m almost passing out I have had nothing to eat since breakfast” (wallpaper paste of course) “Give me my medical card back and I’m out of here”.






With that she jumps off the trolley and before I know it we are back in El Court Ingles buying the boots that sent her ‘giddy’ this morning. I hope the nice man who sent her to the in store doctor is nowhere around or he will likely get a stern talking to for his troubles.


At least I don’t need to make another insurance claim which is a relief as we can’t be too far away from being uninsurable. But on a serious note my main concern after a very harrowing day is whose case the boot box will fit into. Mine I suppose, that'll be more clothes left here.