When you are retired from full-time work, which I am, every day seems much the same as every other day. The once famous weekends, when the weekly routine was broken and a blessed period of 48 hours of doing whatever you wanted to began, no longer matter. To quote The Smiths, though with quite different intent, "every day is like Sunday."

Sure I have my volunteer work and church commitments which are very day and time specific, but other than that, I can float breezily though the days. Oh, and there is my recording schedule for 2RPH, which theoretically could consume a lot of time. Even so, I can still float.

Some will look at me and say, 'what a lucky chap!' But in truth, I enjoyed working (for the most part) and while the teaching profession has the capacity to both shock you and grind you down, I was very committed nevertheless. Possibly too much so, at times.

So the idea of retirement, a very recent concept incidentally, remains up there with the idea of marriage and the idea of having children or even the idea of happiness. It is partly an illusion, partly wishful thinking. And quite a lot of hoping.