TODAY I just have to share with you this photo of my desktop.

This is what happened.

I finished writing an email to the Journal office, put the computer on ‘sleep’, stood up, put down my glasses, glanced down, and this is what I saw.

So now you know why my husband suggested the title of this column in the first place.

Pairs of spectacles follow me up and down around the house with an apparent life of their own.

Not all of them conform to my current prescription, but sometimes, when I’ve mislaid the most recent ones, I just have to grab whatever pair happens to be lying around.

I sent the picture to my sons, thinking it would make them laugh, and the younger one (age 26) emailed back: “Do I get 10p if I find them?”

I’d forgotten that’s what I used to do back in the day – supplement their pocket money with spec-location bonuses.

If only they were still here to help ……..

Another memory of their childhood. Sunday morning football/rugby was, for a number of years, an unmissable fixture on the Riddle family calendar.

There I’d be, dutifully shivering on some wind-and-rainswept touchline, trying with limited success to curb my natural tendency to shout instructions to the boys, which must have caused them such embarrassment.

I’ve been colder on the sports pitches of south Wiltshire than I was on a cruise inside the Arctic Circle where my husband and I spent several days failing to spot the Northern Lights.

Still, I recall those long-gone days fondly, and they came surging back when I happened to walk the dog past a coach giving a pep talk to his somewhat crestfallen young side in Harnham the other weekend.

“The last team that you guys played, they only had ten men, and you lost,” he was telling them. I suppressed a smile of sympathy in case they thought I was laughing at them, which was the last thing I’d do.

“So today I want you to forget about what everybody else is doing, and just concentrate on doing your job.”

Wise words, from which we could all learn, especially me. I wonder whether they won? I do hope so.

I’m dashing off this column at top speed, having just got home from a weekend break in sunny, traffic-free, beautiful Venice after an hour-long delay in take-off due to air traffic control problems at foggy Gatwick, and a 45-minute jam on the M25 due to an accident, to Salisbury at its most miserably, drizzly grey. What a let-down!

anneriddle36@gmail.com