"WOMEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SPIES" *

* Harriet Rubin founded the prestigious Doubleday business imprint Currency and she, as its editorial director, published dozens of notable bestsellers. She is the author of the international bestseller 'The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women'.

The Old Girl is off again soon - Monday week I think. This time it's to USA then Scotland with some side trips to Italy and Spain. She'll be away for about 8 weeks.

I'm used to it as, from the beginning, when we met over thirty six years ago she travelled a lot on business. Initially it was to China and South East Asia. Then various Pacific Islands and Australia. Later it was USA and with some longer stays in Canada and England. I travelled a bit as well with my job which took me to France, USA, Britain, Australia and Italy mainly and we would do some holiday travel at the end of those trips.

I've been watching a few thriller series on Netflix and other streaming platforms recently and have started watching the old British 9-season series SPOOKS. The thought came to me - "what if she's a spy?"

This would make sense of when we were in Wellington recently, walking along Taranaki Street, when she pointed to a nondescript and unsigned building and said: "That's SIS headquarters". I wondered how she knew this as no doubt it required some sort of security clearance and vetting to know such things.

Mmmmm .......

When she goes away I might have a good search through the house to look for secret documents, spy cameras, microdot-manufacturing devices and, with luck, a gun.

I could do with one of those.