We're Not Daft, Honest.

There's a saying in Derbyshire, 'Strong in the arm, weak in the head' but I'm having none of it. We may give the impression of straw chewing yokels at times but that's a deliberate, cunning ploy to put you cleverer brain boxes off guard. Make no mistake, we Derbonians are far from stupid.

I know I've erred in the past but I've admitted it. There must be hundreds of people who have gone to town on their bike and come home on the bus. Go on then, dozens; several; half a dozen; anybody else?

Left your library books on the roof of your car whilst you unlocked it and then drove off? Nobody? I don't believe you. Anyway ,that was all a long time ago.

So I put my hands up the contraceptive machine opening in an hotel toilet in mistake for the hand dryer. I can't help being short sighted and it gave the young lad standing at the urinal a laugh. If our short stay on earth gives someone a smile surely we've done some good; anyway, that was months ago.

We've all grown up now and are well into this modern technological age. And we Derbonians can compete with the rest of you, senior citizens though we may well be. On line auctions did I hear you say. Alright, so we bought a digital camera in an on line auction, pressed the wrong buttons and finished up with three. I'm sure anyone could make the same mistake. And that's partly what life is about, learning from your mistakes.

So I consider we, my wife and I are now experienced, sophisticated twenty first century citizens more than capable of dealing with all that modern living can thrust at us.

Christmas is nearly here. We are spending it quietly at home, just the two of us, by choice, in our dotage. The minimum of food necessitating the minimum of fuss. My wife has carefully listed the necessary vegetables, easily obtained at the last minute. And left to me the turkey would have been bought the same way. Only my wife still remembers the Christmas we forgot to defrost the turkey until Christmas Eve. Trying to find a fresh version at eight o'clock on Christmas Eve is not easy, I can tell you. Which was slightly better than the time we left the Christmas chicken on the kitchen table to defrost and the cat thought it was Christmas and its birthday rolled into one. Mind you, the bits that it left were ok. Come on, I was a poor student at the time. It was either that or roasting the cat.

So on Sunday we visited Donington Market, on of the largest Sunday markets in the Midlands. The lorry selling meat was, as always doing a roaring trade. Very competitive prices; in fact very, very competitive prices. It's not true the beef has saddle marks on it if you look closely but I do wonder why the large difference between market and shop price; ours is not to reason why.

As it happens we were later in the afternoon than normal and all the fresh turkeys were gone. In fact all the turkeys were gone except for one lone, forlorn individual. But no matter, we only wanted one and weighing 8-6 seemed ok to us. (Our daughter suggested we take some of our left over turkey when we visit her on Boxing Day. Good move, who says today's young are remotely daft.) Pleased with our purchase we made our way back through the mud to our motorhome. To be honest I was glad when we got there. It was further than I thought and I was becoming well aware that I was not the spring chicken, carrying a Christmas turkey, (ha!) I used to be. Years ago I would have carried double the weight with half the problem.

I ought to have cottoned on, so to speak when we couldn't find a plate big enough on which to put our turkey. Plus, horror of horrors, an oven practice suggested our turkey was going to necessitate at best, removing all shelves, at worst, decapitation. It was slowly dawning there was a problem. And if the problem was obvious to twenty first century man it was not to twentieth century dinosaurs. How were we to know 8-6 was not 8lbs 6ounces but 8-6 kilos; by my reckoning, nearer twenty pounds than nineteen. Why the hell did we ever go metric. Its now defrosting in the outhouse; anyone for Christmas dinner. Oh. and evidently we can forget the after Christmas sales; our daughter says we're banned.