Getting old isn’t much fun, and possibly the least fun about it is becoming a slave to reading glasses.

It drives me crazy.

I have needed glasses for long sight ever since I was 13, but this has hardly been a problem since 1978, when I got my first pair of contact lenses.

It’s only lately that the inevitable has happened and my near vision has gone too.

Now I have to take glasses with me, wherever I go.

I take them shopping, in case I have to read something on packaging.

I even take them cycling, along with my pump, tyre levers and repair kit, because otherwise I don’t think I would be able to see well enough to mend a puncture.

But there is something even worse than needing reading glasses, and that’s losing the damned things.

I sit down to do the crossword, get up to answer the phone, and when I pick up the pen again, the glasses have gone.

And I don’t just mean they are not on the table, which is the logical place for them, or they are not in the room.

They seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

The root of the problem is the disorganised kind of person I am.

I have the same problem when I have a project or DIY job on the go at home.

After using a screwdriver, I put it down without thinking, and when I need it again, it has been swallowed up by a black hole. I spend more time looking for tools than using them.

It used to be that the only ‘tool’ I ever knew the whereabouts of was my pencil, because I luckily got into the habit of putting it behind my ear.

But I can’t do that anymore – and do you know why? Because of the damned glasses.

I have to keep putting them on and taking them off, so the pencil keeps getting knocked off.

The only solution is to start with four or five pencils, giving me at least a fighting chance of having one available when I need it.

I have adopted the same tactic with reading glasses, buying them in batches and leaving a pair in every room in the house.

The problem with this is: there is a thief afoot who sneaks into people’s houses and steals their reading glasses when they are not looking.

You are probably thinking this is an unlikely scenario, but it is the only way I can explain the fact that there are only two pairs of reading glasses left in the house.

Where do they go? In desperation I have been on the internet, looking for tips, and I found plenty of advice.

Unfortunately, none of it is practical.

The best idea anybody could come up with was getting a case and training yourself to put the glasses in it, whenever you take them off your face.

But this completely ignores the cause of the problem in the first place, and I’m sure it would only result in losing as many cases as glasses.

The next best idea offered was to put a cord on your glasses, so they are always hanging around your neck.

No. No. No.

I know lots of people do it, and it might actually suit them, but although one advantage of age is not usually worrying so much about what you look like, it’s definitely not for me.

In fact, if you ever see me looking the ninny, with a pair around my neck, do me a favour and forget that old rule about never hitting anybody who wears glasses.