Carol is very capable. She is able to clean and she's able to cook, she's able to clean and dust and sweep. At the moment she's pulling the wallpaper off the walls for me so we can decorate. When we do decorate she paints the bottom half of the wall. I paint the top half of the wall because she can't reach to the top so we do it between us. If I go up the ladder, she holds the ladder for me. She goes off shopping by herself. We don't always have to write a list, she quite often remembers what she needs although she always comes back with more than she went off for, but she can do that and all the local shopkeepers know her . She can look after her own cleanliness, don't you Carol. If I cook, Carol washes up, if she prepares a cold buffet or a cold salad then I do the washing up. She can follow a recipe, so she makes her own cakes. I can't make Yorkshire puddings, Carol makes superb ones, and I never do any ironing because I hate ironing and Carol loves ironing so she does all the ironing for the whole house.

Her social life is quite busy. On a Monday she goes to Gateway Club. On a Thursday she goes to the BP Club, most weekends we're out somewhere, even if it's only a quick walk round some of the local footpaths but we always try to get out somewhere on a Sunday. We're both members of National Trust and English Heritage so we go out to the Living History events and Carole really loves her history. Half Terms Carol chooses a city and we do a mid-week break in that city to explore what there is to find. She loves going to the theatre and also likes doing the outdoor theatre events and the outdoor classical musical events that the National Trust put on. Any Shakespeare that comes up, usually the comedies, she likes to go to and I think we can safely say that her favourite is 'A Midsummer Nights Dream'. She loves the ballet so if ever the ballet comes we go off to the ballet. Quite often I think you could say that I am really the chauffeur.

Not so much now that she lives with me. She did have special friends when she lived in Ponteland which is where my parents lived, but there was a group of fourteen or so handicapped people that lived there and they always did things together. My parents and their parents were friends, they lived round the corner type of thing, but gradually over the years our parents have died and the young people have either gone into care or live with brothers and sisters, so they don't get to see each other all that often but when they do meet they carry on the conversation from when they were last together. So they've been meeting about four or five times a year and go off and do, either go out to the pub or go to a meal or might go to Kielder for a weekend away or you know they do something together.

Carole is a good talker, but she's not a good communicator so you have to know what she's talking about to understand what she's trying to tell you. Her memory like us all as we are getting slightly older is getting a bit weaker, she's beginning to have trouble with money. She's never been good but now she's not... and because of her eyesight which she has had both cataracts, she's had cataract operations in both eyes, it means that she likes the security of being round people. She used to be able to travel by public transport but now she gets a bit panicky. If two buses come together, which bus should I get on? Well Carol's answer to that is I'll get on neither and I'll go home. So she has some trouble that way. She needs somebody around just to remind her. You know as you get a little bit older we like to have somebody around to remind us. She needs somebody around just to remind her what she needs to do.