WE'RE getting old, my wife and I. There's no denying it - and the ageing process is an increasingly alarming experience.

My 17-year-old son gets more and more hair while I'm getting proportionately less. Nearly as depressing is the fact that I now have to wear reading glasses over my contact lenses because the man at Specsavers told me bluntly: "It's not unusual for a man of your age to need a bit more help."

To be absolutely fair, my wife is ageing much better than me, but she's still giving me cause for concern.

Last Sunday, she announced: "I'm just going for a little lie down upstairs to listen to The Archers in peace."

This is the kind of thing I'd expect an old granny to say but, apparently, there's a lot of excitement in Ambridge at the moment. Tom and Adam are having a bit of argy bargy over the lambs, Ruth's been giving David a hand with the electric fencing and might even go back to milking, while Phil's new telescope has arrived in time for his 80th birthday.

While she was upstairs, recovering from the excitement caused by Phil's telescope, my wife had gone on the computer to check the emails and, when she came back downstairs, she started having a rant about the cost of downloading music from iTunes.

"Whoever's been buying songs by a band called Report A Problem is costing us a fortune," she stormed.

There'd been a flurry of emailed invoices from iTunes for songs by this mysterious band, so she launched one of her investigations to find out who was responsible.

The kids all shook their heads in denial, so she turned to me: "Have you ever heard of them?" she asked. "Any idea what kind of music they play?"

"They're probably one of those indie garage bands," I suggested in a bid to sound hip.

It took our 17-year-old son to check it out and gently explain to his mother that there wasn't actually a band called Report A Problem.

"It's just part of the iTunes service - if you have any concerns, you can click on the link to er report a problem,"

he said, struggling to contain himself.

"Well, how was I to know?" replied my wife, indignantly.

I got a black look for laughing out loud, so it was just as well that I had to go out into the garden to give the lawn the first cut of the year.

To be frank, it gets harder and harder every year for me to cut the grass and, at the age of 46, I find myself having to sit down for a rest every ten minutes or so.

It takes me about three hours and I pass the time by listening to my iPod: The Beatles, Genesis, Queen, Roxy Music - everything except Report A Problem.

As I was pushing the mower up and down the garden, there was the usual array of items which had to be moved out of the way: the rusty old slide, the battered trampoline, the little yellow and red car from Toys 'R' Us, and the assortment of tractors and diggers the kids used to ride on when they were little.

No one plays on them anymore, so I decided they could all go to the tip. But then I had second thoughts. I found myself thinking that they'd soon come in handy for the grandchildren.

Suddenly, I needed another sit down.

THE THINGS THEY SAY DURING a Sunday morning service at church, the children were invited by the minister to come up to the front.

The minister leaned over one little girl and said: "That's a very pretty dress. Is it your Easter dress?"

The little girl replied, directly into the minister's clip-on microphone: "Yes, and my mum says it's a bitch to iron."

AMUM was listening to her little boy trying to get to grips with his maths homework.

"Two plus five - that son of a bitch is seven," he said. "Three plus six - that son of a bitch is nine."

Shocked by what she'd heard, the mum asked what he was doing and the boy told her it was the way he'd been told to practise his maths homework.

Infuriated, she had a word with the boy's teacher the next day: "What on earth are you teaching my son in maths?" she asked.

"We're learning addition," replied the teacher.

"And why have you been teaching them to say two plus two - that son of a bitch is four?" asked the mum.

"I haven't," explained the teacher, "I've been teaching them to say two plus two - the sum of which is four..."