My thoughts are understandably focused this weekend on mum's recent signs of growing aggression.

How differently things have turned out! When, back in the mid-1980s, dad retired from work, mum was concerned that he would find himself at a loose end and die of boredom. It seemed a reasonable expectation. Outside of work, dad was not interested in very much at all. He spent most of his time at home asleep on the sofa. On the other hand, mum was the more social one and had always had a wide range of handicrafts to keep her occupied. It didn't look as if she would ever be bored.

We were all so wrong.

Dad almost immediately dived into all sorts of things. He entered a couple of running events. He took part in an appeal for a leukemia charity, helping to push a bed across Australia. His team did the 1,000 km Melbourne to Sydney leg, if I remember correctly. He organised a serious hiking trip for himself, Greg and I. He became a volunteer park ranger, working at Kalkari, north of Sydney.

He also found a series of more sedentary activities too. He became active again in Freemasonry, and held several positions, both official and ceremonial. He did similar things for the Probus club, and became secretary of the church. He did volunteer work for the social services, driving old people to day care, and so on. He started work on the family tree. He taught himself how to use a computer, and at his peak was quite capable with word-processing, spreadsheets, email, web-browsing, scheduling, and, of course, solitaire. He attended a local class intended to teach computer skills to retirees, and became the unofficial assistant teacher.

Mum, who had once been a passable typist, never took to the computer. If she had, she could have been in near-daily email contact with her grandchildren, Derek's son and daughter, Connor and Rebecca, which would have been great for all concerned. Not only did mum not learn anything about the computer, she resented the time dad spent on it.

But it went much further than that. One by one, mum got dad to pull out of his various activities. Her argument was that, now that they were retired, they ought to spend their time together, and he ought to share in the housework. There was something to be said for this point of view, but it was sad to see dad giving up his various roles. It was his first foray into freedom nipped in the bud.

Soon dad was completely reined in. He had dropped all his activities, and therefore needed the computer far less. His computer skills started to fade. He began to spiral into serious inactivity.

So there they were together in the house. Mum had got what she wanted, except it wasn't. She annoyed dad, dad annoyed her. They seemed to develop a knack of getting on each other's nerves. One beneficial side-effect of this was that they were always both extremely glad to see any of the family when we went around to visit, and were prepared to do almost anything to keep us there.

So dad went from the anti-social workaholic to the active elder citizen to the shackled and bored retiree. Mum went from friendly and lively to resentful to irritable.

Dad always stuck up for himself in a fight and encouraged all his sons to do the same. Mum disapproved of this. Now dad is embarrassed by mum's aggression.

I shake my head in bewilderment.