The loss of Halfords, Thing-Me-Bobs and The Wharf in Felixstowe is provoking some interesting debate.

“Poundland? What does that say about our town?”

For my mild-mannered friend, this was pretty angry stuff – but it’s a sentiment I have heard across the town in the past few weeks about the knocking of the three stores into one and the soon-to-arrive new occupants .

There is a feeling that Felixstowe deserves better, that discount shops are not the sort of stores we want to encourage – though the mutterings are a probably a long way from Stop the Poundland Takeover of Our Town placards appearing in gardens.

On the positive side, at least we won’t have a prime town centre site standing empty for months – and I bet Poundland will be packed with shoppers.

n As we crunched our way across a stubble field, I reminisced about how the cut corn would scratch my legs as a child in shorts and sandals.

“And now you’re in the autumn of your life,” said Mrs C, wistfully.

Hang on a mo – the “autumn of my life”?

I’ll have you know it’s only late summer from where I am strutting – August Bank Holiday at the latest – which led to a debate on middle-age, and whether we have reached it yet (my wife insists she is nowhere near).

Apparently a new study says instead of beginning at 41, middle-age now begins at 53 – so I’m not there yet.

Recently, Mark Murphy was debating middle-age on his BBC Radio Suffolk show and featured a quiz to see if you had reached the milestone or not.

Mrs C and I were doing rather well and feeling quite smug at our youthfulness until Mark suddenly asked if we could name any song in the charts. Er, no.

Then it went rapidly downhill...did we buy clothes for comfort or style? Um, comfort. Prefer a walk to a lie-in? Yes. Would we prefer a quiet night in to a night out? Where’s that remote control...

n To decide who would go first into the dentist’s chair this week, I suggested we had an arm wrestle.

I won’t be making that mistake again. My wimpy washing up wrists were no match for Mrs C’s hoover arm.

n So Nick Clegg is to give every infant a free meal at school.

One of his reasons is to improve pupils’ concentration. Perhaps he should be giving them breakfast – regarded by nutritionists as the most important meal of the day – so they can focus on their lessons for the whole day and not just after a nice big lunch.

If the kids have a meal at school they are not going to want to sit down with mum and dad and have a family meal in the evening and discuss their school day either.

And why should taxpayers fork out to buy the children of every family – regardless of how well-off they are – a meal?

Still, it might bag him a few extra votes at the next election.