Wakes week, the annual holiday’s when all the town packs up and goes leaving the town looking forlorn and forgotten.

That was in the not too distant past, now its take a holiday whenever so there never seems to be that holiday atmosphere in the air as you walk about town.

Having joined the ‘take a week off’ brigade, discussed our budget and where each would like to go, she that must be obeyed then waves her veto and a week somewhere in Cornwall is decided.

That’s now in three weeks, just the two of us as the ‘children’ are of an age where they are not children anymore.

It’ll be nice, just the two of us, but it isn’t the same building a sandcastle without children.

We’ll be able to talk and do things together, like we have always said we would do when the children go. Mmh don’t know about that, I want to go walking in the countryside, she will want to go shopping. Maybe I’m being a bit mean she will do a bit of walking, along a straight flat path, plenty of sit down stops, maybe a cup of tea on the way, but she will remind me of it for the rest of the holiday.

We’ll do a bit a of dancing, now that’s okay, sequence and line dancing something we both agree on. Maybe a show if there is owt on. A café for lunch and back for dinner, mmh I can cope with that.

But M&S, Debenhams, BHS no matter where you go in the country they are the same, overpowering, overheated and overpriced, what do I think of this and that, will this go with that I bought last month, bewildered I stand looking like all the other husbands dragged in. I mention that I will go in the coffee shop for a brew then she can browse at her leisure, I still can’t understand what I said was wrong?

Anyway bags under my arm after paying we go out and look for another store.

A street entertainer is playing his guitar and singing, I stop, just for a moment to listen and put some coins in his bag, and almost like a child I am beckoned as she enters the next ‘store’.

They have there own ‘smell’ don’t they, and the assistants some time try to outdo each other with the strength of the heady fragrances they wear, scent to entice the male? I don’t think so, it just gives me an almighty headache. But like the soldier I am I carry on, to do my duty to God and the wife!

Into a Mall, on a sunny day! It was even hotter as the glass roof increased the temperature. I see a gadget shop and smile whilst I sidle over to look in the window, I know I’m okay for a few minutes as a loo stop had been required. Gazing at the gadgets, all rubbish really but they would be great to play with, a grab of my arm and her voice saying ‘I don’t why you look at all that rubbish’ we move on.

It’s not that I mind the shopping, I don’t really mind even for a full day. But when I’m asked questions about what I think, and then being told I have no idea or how do I look, which is dynamite really, how do you say, well its tight on your bum and loose on your top? Without getting ‘the glare.’ And then when we get back she wants to do a full ‘trying on’ session to choose what she wants to go out in tonight!

She says I’m going deaf, and that I never take an interest, so I open the paper and read.

I offer up I’m having a brew, do you want one, instead of yes please, or, no thanks, I get well we are going out in half an hour. I sit up straight and look at the clock thinking I must have dropped off, but no there is loads of time before dinner. So I query what she meant, then she tells me that she has arranged a little meeting in the café with some of the people we met at the dance. I look bewildered – like you do – when things are thrust on you, you know she says we talked about it whilst you went to the loo last night, don’t you remember? (or should that be !) I have learnt over the years that its best not to argue just get on with it. So off I go and get changed, having first taken a quick glance at what she is wearing for a clue as to what is expected. That clue never happened and I had to ask, a look of well, what can you call it? A kind of ‘do I have to do everything for you’? So I mind read her and put something ‘middling’ on, not perfect she said, she would have preferred this that or tother, but it will do.

My head is whirling around trying to second guess what she expects of me without her telling me, money – check, cards – check, car keys – hey that means I can’t drink, check.

Thankfully she tells m without asking and the car keys go back! And off we go to the site café. We enter and I knew straight away where we were sitting, a group of women chattering 30 to the dozen and a group of dejected husbands. I go around to them and say hello, has anyone seen the football scores? Eyes roll around to me with an almost pleading look as I ask the assistant if we can have the TV on. Victory, not one of the women heard, so we where there watching chatting and actually enjoying ourselves. 10 minutes before the end a shout goes up, we were to be off to the next place, but there is only 10 minutes to go, well you could cut the atmosphere with a knife as we sloped off through the door.

It’s not all bad, they did want to go to the pub for a drink, but it had no TV, no pool table and no beer! They took us to a WINE bar!

Have you ever got close to the end of your tether? Felt you could quite easily just let rip and say what has been brewing up inside all day? then come back to earth as you sip your glass of Merlot.

Wasn’t that a nice night, she said as we arrived back in our room, note it was not a question but a statement, no answer.

The dinner was good, but I wouldn’t have cooked it that way, and the sweet, well they don’t ever do them like I do, do they dear! No answer, as I slip into the land of nod.

The following day as I emerge refreshed from the previous days battering I think of how to broach the subject, I don’t want to go shopping, I just want to relax, read a book, well just do nothing.

In she walks, ‘I thought’ she began, as a sigh emerged from my lips, ‘that we could go for a walk around that wildlife park in the woods’? Not really believing what I’d heard she continues ‘I know you like looking at the animals’ well in the spirit of compromise to my doing nothing I agreed, and like a spoilt kid I grinned like a Cheshire cat right through breakfast.

It niggled me, I thought there must be something behind this generosity of hers, but nothing came out. All day we spent in the park, nattering with the keepers about the animals. Even had a decent lunch at the café (albeit expensive).

Then back at the hotel, just as I was relaxing prior to getting changed for dinner it came out, whilst she enjoyed yesterday, and the night do, she didn’t want to sit with all of them again (silent phew almost came out) and would I object if instead of going down to dinner we just went out to a pub for a more basic meal? So the Cheshire cat came out again as I changed into a more relaxed jeans and tee shirt, she into similar and we walked out, round the corner and to the pub!

Third day as we awoke ‘things’ were more relaxed, as we lay there thinking I opened up by asking if there was anything she wanted to do (biting my lip in case she said shopping) no, she said, but it would be nice to just to sit and do nothing.

The people in the breakfast bar looked at me funny as I was grinning like a Cheshire cat, again.

So as the week went on we slipped more and more each day into a more and more relaxed mode. We seem to know when each other wanted to sit, to dance, to drink or to eat. Yet nothing had happened to force a change in either of us, or so I thought.

Sitting in a bar terrace next to the sea watching the evening sun say goodbye to the day, she told me what had happened. She said that some of the other women bragged how they could control their menfolk. But that in itself wasn’t the spark, it was the fact that most were on there second and some even on their third husband because of retaliation, not physical as in knocking about but they just grew tired and went! She opened out to me that she loved me, and looking back she didn’t really like to continually shop it just seemed that that was what was expected. The past few days had highlighted to her how much we were good together and that the compromises in life were better (well sometimes) than the ‘its my day’

A quiet revolution in relationships had taken place, we both learned that day that it’s the things done together that are important, and knowing that you have shared was the greatest feeling of all.