Apologies... on behalf of my wife

I've been asked to issue a public apology to the gentleman who was nearly run down by my wife recently.

To put readers in the picture, we were leaving our drive with my wife behind the wheel when she started to pull out, only to realise - as I shouted 'stop' as loudly as possible - that a man was in front of our car.

The man had been jogging with his dog and was sprinting past our drive when the near-miss happened.

Of course, it now transpires that the whole incident was entirely my fault. The view out of our drive is obscured by a large hedge on the right hand side and Melissa had asked me to keep an eye out for cars.

As she started to edge forward, I said 'stop' - or words to that effect - but she ignored me. It turned out that stop wasn't descriptive enough. Apparently, I should have said 'stop, pedestrian' and she would have stopped. Instead, my warning was 'too vague' to be of any use.

So there we are. What started out as an apology on behalf of my wife has now turned into a personal apology. So, to the jogger whose exercise was nearly halted very abruptly, I'm very, very sorry and will try to be more descriptive with my warnings in future.