Whoooooo-tiddley dum, tiddley dum, tiddley dum

I know he won't mind me saying this, but Andy is a bit of a Doctor Who fan. We first met on Doctor Who's birthday - 23rd November, if your interested in the date a fictional character will sulk if the postman is late - and one of the courting rituals he impressed me with was the fact he's had a Doctor Who novel published. As our relationship developed, I became more aware he was quite keen on all things Who - there was a mug, a T-shirt, a few dvds, annuals and novels and mild panic attacks each month if he couldn't find the latest issue of DWM (or Doctor Who magazine for those of us who like to use the Queen's English in its complete form), but I wasn't aware of the fullness of his Doctor Who habit until we moved into our first house together after we were married (even Richard, his best man, mentioned Doctor Who in his best man's speech - I have the evidence on video).

'What's in this box?' I ask, heaving a white plastic storage carton from the back of the car. 'Oh' says Andy airily, 'just a few Doctor Who things.' 'And this one,' I say, as another reveals itself. 'Again...Doctor Who stuff...' I gave up asking after the eighth box...

And so it continued. Reader, we have a WHOLE LOFT full of 'just a few bits of Doctor Who stuff. I'm afraid to go up there in case I find an embalmed John Pertwee in a corner covered in cobwebs. And what do I do? I encourage his obsession by buying him Doctor Who toys for Christmas and making birthday cakes on 23rd November.

One thing I have learned is it is important to be very quiet when Doctor Who is on the telly. This wasn't so difficult when it was Eccleston - in fact, I would often wander off to do something more stimulating, like clean the oven or crochet placemats, but now Tennant is the Who man, it is a little more difficult. He does tend to make women squeal, does David Tennant. And I ought to know better at my age.

Anyhow, because Andy has this obsession, he thinks I should have one as well.I keep saying, 'Darling, I'm a woman. We don't get obsessions. And if we do, we have to get them treated with drugs.' He thinks I am missing out on some important sense of belonging with my obsessionless life. There are things I like, such as Shakespeare, nuts, cats and chickens but I'm not obsessed. 'How about collecting something?' he says. 'Like what?' says I. 'I don't know - Shakespeare dvds?' 'You know I'll only watch a dvd once,' I say. 'You watch The Producers a lot,' he says. 'True,' I say, ' but only when I'm ironing and there's nothing else on the telly.'

I've tried to develop an obsession, truly I have, if only to keep Andy company. 'Look, there's a ninth century cheese dish in the turnip style of Baldrick. I must have it!' But no. It'll lead to disaster if I start on that slippery slope. I'll end up with Kim and Aggie knocking on my door and being appalled at my houseful of old newspapers and tin cans. They'll find me sitting in a corner on a spacehopper wearing a lime green tank top and pink bobble hat gibbering 'Don't go in the loft. John Pertwee's asleep up there, you know.'