I wouldn't say it's changed a great deal because we've always been a very close couple, we've always done things together, but of course that has meant that we've always taken the dogs a walk, we've always gone on holiday together, always been country holidays in the main, although we've been abroad quite a lot which she can't do anymore. So we've always done a lot together. So we're only not together in the things that we used to do together like taking the dog a walk - I take the dog a walk now on my own - but the problem with that is that I have a whole host of friends that I meet every morning - different people, different people with dogs - across the fields, chat to them, talk to them. I've met a lot of people and I come back, if you like my daily chat has been fulfilled. Now that of course is what she hasn't got anymore. When she used to come with me then she would be involved in that daily chat but that doesn't happen anymore so... it's affected us in that way in so much that you don't meet people, and the one thing I have to do is meet people.
I'm not very good actually with people, but I do like to meet people, I feel people are just part of life, if you don't meet people then you'll become a recluse and that's sad. So I have to do those things now which we used to do together, I have to do those things on my own.
All our lives we have been close together because we used to do a lot of dingy sailing, in fact all the family had boats and we used to race all over the country, and if you like my wife was our team manager so it's not up until, that was only a few years ago that I packed up. She was our team manager and that was it you know, you were with a whole crowd of people but when I stopped sailing of course all those people went as well, and that's when I joined the drama group because I said, I've got to meet somebody, I've got to be with somebody, be involved with somebody, doing something. And that's what I did. I marched down to the local village hall one day to the drama group meeting and I said I'm here! But [wife] couldn't do that you see.
She has joined a local woman's sort of club which meets once a month but that's only a low-profile thing you know, they don't seem to do anything but just talk but that's good, that's good and she's done that. But apart from the garden which is always here now she hasn't got anywhere to go out and meet people, so we've got this divide, where I can go out and meet different people every day and see what's going on in the world, and she will stay here till I come back, so the only time we go out, is if we go out to a nursery or something like that so we don't meet many people not people we know. |
