I wake up in a cold sweat of terror. In one hand I'm holding a used tea bag, in the other what appears to be a a piece of lettuce. In front of me stands a large uniformed figure, meaty fingers holding a clipboard in one hand and a torch in the other. The torch is trained on me and I'm in the process of lifting the lid of a brown bin. In my head I hear a voice saying nein, nein, nein. Of course it's a dream. But it might not be. Last week I suggested in a somewhat cavalier fashion that if the government really wanted to encourage re-cycling then they should make it illegal not to do so. In Germany recycling is a way of life and anybody not doing it is in deep trouble. The only problem is that you need a short university course to know just how to do it. For the past few days I have been wandering around holding various pieces of litter trying to puzzle out where they go. For instance; wine bottles. I know the bottles are recycled, that's fine. But some have screw tops, some have cork corks, some have plastic corks. The screw tops are easy, they go into recycled aluminium. The corks go into? I quickly discover that the cork corks to in paper the plastic ones go into plastic. I can't imagine that any one will know the difference but I'm sternly told that they will. Someone could easily turn up on the doorstep holding a plastic cork between a pair of tweezers demanding to know the criminal who dropped it into paper. No wonder this is the stuff of nightmares. I still haven't a clue where cigarette ends should go, but, after a near disaster, I know where they shouldn't. I'm naturally smoking outside. We smokers now all know that unless we are on a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic in a house where the owner is a chain smoker of 50 plus a day who never intends to change, we smoke outside. Apparently the MOD demands it anyway, and I don't want a raid from a group of camouflage clad lads kicking in the window just because I'm having a fag in the kitchen so I'm on the patio. I decide that rather than flick ends into the bushes I'll deposit my cigarette ends in a ladylike fashion in a wooden tub which is full of compost from last year and an ideal place. Later, I intend to remove the evidence and bury it into one of the bins, hopefully the right one. This plan might have worked had the weather not been so dry for so long. But it had. On the second day of my holiday we went for a drive to visit a lovely village and upon our return in the early evening we sniffed the air and detected the smell of a bonfire in the vicinity. We tutted a bit about people who light bonfires in the evening and pollute the atmosphere when we all want to sit out and enjoy a drink and the odd nibble at a crisp and I added my bit about anti-social bonfire lighters from my own experience. Then my grandson noticed that a curl of smoke was arising from the corner of the patio and discovered the wooden tub and its contents were alight. It took four buckets of water to put it out, my daughter was upset because her wooden tub was singed and I'm now being called twisted firestarter by the whole family. I protested in vain that had they eschewed the use of pure peat for their tubs, which is now the in-thing for those of us who want to protect the peat marshes, the contents of the tub wouldn't have ignited. Nobody listened to me.

I had a good trip. I can't praise National Express enough for a smooth journey, all services dead on time, pleasant staff and comfortable seats. We stopped on the longest leg for what is delicately called a comfort break, in other words a stop for those who want to smoke or to use the lavatories or both but preferably not at the same time although it was a close run thing. Air Berlin took off dead on time, but then it would be news if it hadn't, and no sooner had we had our free drink and sandwich than we were on the approach to Munster. And you can smoke in the baggage hall. What more do you want from an airline? So here I am at my daughter's house and she's a gadget freak too, so I'm in seventh heaven. Some mothers and daughters compare new clothes and make-up. We do that too, but we do play the 'guess what gadget I've got since you were here last' game. It's a bit like poker. I boasted of my avocado slicer, she came up with her thing for removing the top out of tomatoes. I threw in my counter top cooker, she produced her new coffee maker and followed up with her magnificent automatic can opener which actually goes round on its own. I was green with envy. Later in the evening she produced the crème de la crème. Her three piece pineapple middle remover. Three pieces because there are different size pineapples and there's a bit for each size. This must be the Rolls Royce of gadgets, albeit a fairly cheap one. After a couple of glasses of welcoming wine she was persuaded, fairly quickly, to demonstrate. Out of the fridge came a whole pineapple and within moments it was denuded of its centre which was plopped onto a plate in perfect rounds, the rest of the fruit left hollow, just crying out to be filled with pineapple sorbet. I secretly planned to steal it unless I could find a source within reach. OK, you males out there will be saying 'why do you need to remove the centre part of a pineapple in rounds when you can perfectly well buy a tin of pineapple slices at a considerably lower price?' THAT'S NOT THE POINT. It's just not the same. This is a fresh pineapple, and besides you wouldn't be left with a perfect empty pineapple if you bought a tin, just an ugly tin, and even if you don't want to make pineapple sorbet, or ice cream, you could easily find a use for an empty pineapple. I can't think of one at the moment, but I'm sure there is one. Anyway, just shut up. At the moment I'm going through the drawers to look for other things I haven't got. I've found the gadget which takes the little bit of foil off the top of wine bottles, the magnetic spice rack, the locking plastic containers which don't leak, the automatic corkscrew. I don't think the suitcase is big enough! I'm very pleased to report that she is also still searching for the perfect pepper grinder which doesn't stop grinding within a few weeks.

So, that is the first week of my retirement, although officially I'm still on holiday. I'm enjoying it so far. I have to say this, however. Since I've been here we've been to a lovely village, packed with visitors, into the city centre, out to a restaurant, driven to the supermarket. I knew there was something missing, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then it came to me. No yobs. No drunken, shrieking, stumbling, vomiting, threatening yobs. Maybe they're somewhere else, but not here. And it's so nice.