'With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come' - I quote from the 'The Merchant of Venice', but there's  precious little to laugh about in the newspapers today.

In Carmarthen, I heard an older person grumbling, saying he couldn't afford to live much longer because it was was to expensive to heat the house.

On the news, I heard that three thousand people in England and Wales are dying each year because energy bills have rocketed.

Inflation is partly to blame for this. A pension worth ten thousand pounds twenty years ago, has now dropped to £5,658, in actual purchasing power.

But the headline that incensed me was: 'elderly should be taxed out of their homes and let younger families move in'.

Anyone would think we lived in palaces, country estates or Knightsbridge mansions. It's tantamount to saying that pensioners should be put on an ice flow and set adrift.

Peter and I live in a four bedroom house, bought with money we saved from one modest income.

The builder said it had two double bedrooms and two single rooms.  Only one bedroom, with an en-suite, could honestly be called 'double'.

The other bedroom has a three quarter sized bed, a wardrobe and dressing table, but little room to move around in.

We're not Royalty, but we like our own bedrooms. My room is hot, Peter likes his cool.  I take three quarters of the bed and get annoyed if I'm woken up and told to move over and share the duvet. Peter snores. 

Tonight Peter has the twenty four hour heart monitor attached to him and, every time it tightens to check blood pressure, it beeps, but I won't hear it in my own room.

We also have a 'family bathroom', where I have to position myself  'just so' to close the door. (No hopes of getting the whole family in there).

In addition, we have two 'shoeboxes'- (single rooms, according to the builder). 

The back room just about takes two wardrobes - (yes, I have clothes - my goodness, the way some people have it in for pensioners I expect they would like us to dress in Chairman Mao style pyjamas all  day so we could give the money saved to the taxman). Sorry. I am getting bitter. It's an age thing. Ignore it.

The fourth bedroom, classified the 'Scriptorium', is where I am at the moment. I can easily sit at the computer as long as I keep my stomach in.

Downstairs we have a not overly large sitting room and a dining room, which we use for every meal, plus a kitchen, a utility room and a cloakroom. 

If our house were any smaller than this, we would be falling over each others toes, yet we are being told to downsize by people who live in mansions!  (Can I be the only one who finds this ironical, nay, farcical?)

I'm talking about the very same people who allowed house prices to soar, by allowing easy lending.

The words 'cant' and 'hypocrisy' keep popping into my mind. I can't think why.