I MUST admit that I am becoming a creature of habit.

In the past, I looked askance at people who I considered led an orderly, conventional life.

I thought ‘how dull, why don’t you do something exciting, something different?’ But I seem to have reached the phase — I won’t say age, because I don’t think it’s anything to do with age, (she said lying through her teeth) — when the thought of packing a bag and setting off to heaven- knows where, fills me with dismay.

I mean, I’d miss Corrie and Emmerdale, and how would I get on without knowing who is kissing who on Albert Square?

Yes, I have to own up, I do try to keep up with them because, over the years, they have become ‘my neighbours’.

I have friends who scoff and say ‘you don’t really watch all that stuff do you?’ but the odd thing is, if I mention something I have seen, they, too, seem to know just what’s happening to who, and on which programme!

I think what they suffer from is ‘Snobytellitus’ by pretending that they only watch the news, and travel programmes.

I love telly, but never put it on till later in the evening.

But there’s no doubt that television is a great boon to many people, such as those who live alone.

I have such a friend, and the TV set in her kitchen is on all the time.

She’s not sitting watching it, but says hearing the voices, and the occasional glimpse of a face as she goes about her chores, stops her feeling isolated and lonely.

Men poke fun, even sneer a little at us women and make remarks like ‘you and that blinking tele’, and pretend that they are above that sort of thing, but you just watch their avid concentration when the football, cricket, or rugby is on.

I was invited to speak on the only subject I know anything about, ‘me’, at the Darwen Probus meeting, and what a pleasure it was to meet a group of such nicely turned- out, polite, well-mannered men.