IT’S been quite a week for me, receiving the great honour of a CBE at Buckingham Palace.

But I’ll tell you what, forget going nose-to-nose with Roy Jones Jr, Bernard Hopkins or Mikkel Kessler, on Wednesday, for the first time in my life, I had a conversation with someone who genuinely intimidated me!

The whole thing was like a blur, I couldn’t believe how nervous I got meeting the Queen, it’s very unlike me.

Travelling to London I felt great, but then actually having the Queen standing in front of you and talking to you, it’s just a bit surreal.

She asked about the boxing (I think) but by then I felt really nervous and started blabbering about something or other. I can’t even remember what I said. But I don’t think it made much sense.

We had a better conversation when she asked me about the charity work I do, I remember stringing a proper sentence together and saying that I was involved with a lot of children’s charities and intended to carry on with them when I retired from boxing.

It passes you by very quickly, the experience of being at Buckingham Palace, but it was a great occasion for my parents.

I could tell that they really had a great time, particularly my mum, who doesn’t really enjoy doing stuff when there will be press and lots of attention. But not even she could resist a trip to meet the Queen!

It came just a week after the British Boxing Board of Control named me as fighter of the year, another terrific honour.

It’s fantastic for me to get such recognition after an amazing 12 months; having beaten Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones in the US and having done the Jones fight myself, I have to rate it as one of my best years in my whole career. Maybe the best.

I don’t really want to dwell too much on the retirement talk, but needless to say I am getting pretty sick of being asked about it all the time.

I could just retire, here and now. I don’t think I want to fight again at the moment, I am not sure the motivation is still there.

I don’t want to start looking like a boxer, or be one of those who doesn’t know when to quit, but there is another side to it.

I also don’t want to be a Floyd Mayweather, retire, return, retire, return, retire and it goes on and on.

It’s tacky and totally unfair on the fans who pay their hard- earned cash to watch someone fight.

So I will not be making any decision or announcement until the New Year, I just want to chill out and enjoy the lead-up to Christmas.

I have been pretty upset after news broke at the weekend that I was quitting, because of a conversation that I had which was (I thought) a personal one.

But I didn’t say anything then that I haven’t said in this column many times (and indeed, in this one).

At the moment I am leaning towards retiring, but if I get a fantastic offer and an opponent that I feel would be exciting for the fans to see me fight, then who knows?

As I focus on other things, I can tell you that dad and I are hoping that the first show put together by Calzaghe Promotions will be going ahead early next year, possibly in Merthyr and hopefully in late February.

It’s important we start to get things moving if we are serious about promoting, it’s no easy task and I am starting at the bottom, as it should be.

We will kick-off with hopefully a couple of small shows and they will both be in Wales, it’s important to showcase the talent we have in this country, because there is an awful lot of young, hungry fighters and they don’t all come from our gym in Newbridge.

The prospect of promoting excites me, but so does helping dad to train guys in the gym. I feel I still have a lot to offer boxing, even if it isn’t as a fighter.

The sport is in my blood, it is as simple as that, I don’t know anything else, and I have probably only had two weeks in my entire life where I have had a job other than being a fighter.

I was delighted to see my old mate Ricky Hatton get back to some of his better form last weekend when he beat Paulie Malignaggi. It wasn’t a classic, but it was more of a typical Hatton fight and he made Malignaggi look pretty average to be honest.

It also took Ricky to where he wants to be, back in the frame to fight the winner of the Oscar De La Hoya versus Manny Pacquiao fight on December 6.

I’ll hold off on my prediction for that one, because next Saturday is a big night for boxing, with Enzo Maccarinelli back on the world title scene against Jonathan Banks at the Excel Arena in London.

I will need more words than I have left to talk about all that.

Finally, a plug. My new DVD Joe Calzaghe – My Life Story, is out now and I am very proud of it.

If anyone buys a copy for Christmas and would like me to sign it, then they can just pop down the gym and see dad. But I am not signing copies of the other Joe Calzaghe DVD put out by someone else!