I returned on Tuesday and entered Helensburgh from the Waitrose end of town. It took 15 minutes to get from Waitrose into the town centre at 10pm, and the reason for the delay? Two sets of traffic lights and huge potholes and ridges along the Chord road works. It made me wonder what on earth visitors to the town must think. Waitrose conducted a huge marketing campaign to herald the arrival of their new store in Helensburgh, adverts on the telly, huge mobile billboards parked in prominent places out with the area to encourage people to visit their new store. So what do these new visitors to the area find should they venture into town? Road works with three way traffic lights which take ages to let cars through and a sump-busting road along the front. With another Waitrose opening in Milngavie those people who live equidistantly may chose Milngavie rather than bother with Helensburgh. It seems a shame that for such an important time when local businesses might have benefitted from some much welcome extra trade, that someone somewhere didn’t have the foresight to delay some of the works to make it an easy journey into the town for anyone who might be inclined to venture further than the store.

Computers seem to be ruling our everyday lives. More and more it becomes impossible to avoid them.

Even the latest mobile phones are beyond comprehension. Now call me a Luddite but in the past few days I have really begun to fear that at the tender age of 50 harrumph, I am well and truly being left behind by technology.

I had always considered myself well versed and fairly up to speed with my computer skills, I even worked at a call centre briefly where I picked up their computer system very quickly, however when confronted with my son’s latest iPhone I had to pretend to be impressed but secretly was baffled as to why you would ever want to speak to it asking the most inane questions and get inane answers from a computerised voice called Siri.

A few days later when driving back in a hire car I heard a beeping noise and a light started flashing on the computer screen dashboard. I pulled onto the hard shoulder and peered at the strange symbol in front of me. On consulting the handbook I discovered it was a warning that there was a danger of ice. I could feel it was cold, the temperature gauge on the all singing, all dancing screen told me it was four degrees so I didn’t feel I needed to be alarmed into thinking there was something technically wrong with the car. Maybe the car should have a Siri, I could have asked him and he could have warned me gently and perhaps the iPhone shouldn’t. Or maybe the technology boffins should realise that there is a huge market of (generally older) people who have no desire for such complicated computer gimmicks. The local heroes this week are all the staff and volunteers at St Margaret’s hospice. It can never be easy looking after the terminally ill and their grieving families at the end of their loved ones life, but is done with such care that it makes such a difficult time much easier.