I CAN see clearly how it happened.

With middle age, my husband and I have found that our gradually deteriorating eyesight has necessitated the acquisition of numerous, increasingly powerful pairs of spectacles. Each of which an optician presented to us in a case.

Now I’m quite conscientious about putting our redundant glasses in the charity box, for distribution in poorer nations. But I never thought about ditching the cases. Simply never crossed my mind. It’s not as if I kept them anywhere organised.

And suddenly the other day, while rifling through the drawers in his desk in search of something or other, my husband got all hot and bothered and exclaimed: “How many glasses cases do we need in this house?” A rhetorical question, you understand.

Well, we set about unearthing them from their hiding places at the backs of cupboards, in old handbags, in the car, in fact absolutely everywhere, and the answer appeared to be 11.

We couldn’t quite believe it. Most of them were hideous, plain black, clunkily large, with so-called ‘designer’ names on the inside. Most of them were therefore unused and in mint condition.

Actually, with the festive ‘gifting’ (horribly ugly word invented by the retail industry!) season in mind, I’d dropped a couple of what I thought were quite subtle hints over the last few months about some rather attractive floral ones I’d noticed in town.

Alas, these hints were obviously too subtle, as my other half looked astonished when I raised the subject openly during this clearing-out exercise, and I shall have to buy my own.

So now all those surplus cases are going into the charity box, too, and I’m sure they’ll find a good home. It just won’t be mine.

Speaking of the ugly and the unwanted, I understand that those of us opposed to the construction of a socking great estate on the picturesque Britford meadows will now have to wait until June to find out officially whether it is likely to go ahead.

The preferred locations for the swathes of extra development required by the government will be set out in what is quaintly known as the Wiltshire Housing Site Allocations DPD.

After a series of delays, this was finally due out for public consultation this month. But our beloved unitary council has made such a pig’s ear of finding acceptable sites in the Chippenham area that it’s had to go back to the drawing board, holding up the whole caboodle.

Or as their press office put it in response to my enquiries, the document ‘requires additional work’ by their depleted and dispirited planning staff, to whom, as to all of you, I wish a happy New Year.

anneriddle36@gmail.com PS If any of my correspondents get a weird-looking email from me, don’t open it. This hack has been hacked! But it should be sorted now.