I went to do a house call with an elderly man yesterday. It was a strange feeling.
Let me tell you why.
This man used to buy Major cigarettes from me some 20 years ago when I was in retailing and running the filling station in Enfield. He lived and worked close by and was in to me every morning for his cigarettes.
We used to shoot the breeze, as is customary in retail and with regulars, men and women you would meet every morning.
Yesterday he sat in his armchair in his front room with Sky News on the television.
He suffers from bad health now and is virtually immobile. He has a carer and is a frequent visitor to Dublin hospitals.
We will have to call back to him today to have the will executed and witnessed by myself and one of the girls in the office as he cannot leave his house now.
But as I left his house, I could not avoid thinking back to 20 years agon and him on his way to work and buying his cigarettes and having a few pints in the Bridge Bar at the end of the working day.
How our lives have changed.