Dear LPG, 

I live in Florida USA and I had never been to London before I recently had the pleasure of visiting a family member in the UK and it was a really different way of life to mine. I spent my time in the Borough of Lewisham and was introduced to the LPG and a whole new way of life. 

Florida is beautiful nearly all year, although visitors like this year’s hurricane Irma keep us on our toes.  We don’t get the long summer evenings that you have in London but we also miss out on the cold winters that our northern states and the UK experience.  So life appears to pass at a much slower pace for us. 

I am a mum who, although retired, is just about saying goodbye to her not-so -young children who are finally working on moving out.  I spent my working life being what we Americans call a Domestic Goddess that meant that I am quite used to not going out much and my life centres on my home.  In fact my crossover into retirement has been seamless.

In spite of all my illnesses and health appointments, as I have gotten older, I find myself with time on my hands and sleeping less into the bargain.   I often wake up in the early hours with so many thoughts in my mind about what I would like to do with my days that they crowd my head.  By the time I get up and ready for the day my head is so crowded that I don’t know where to start, the result being, that I end up achieving relatively little. 

I go about my daily routine with its pros and cons.  I don’t have so much to do now that the children aren’t children anymore, but I accept that I am getting a little slower and those chores take a little longer.  That is about it, the whole process repeats itself in the early hours of each next morning.  I have recently taken a long look at my life, and for this New Year I have decided to change the habit of a lifetime.

I am working on a new philosophy and plan; my new aim is to work on producing one achievement, no matter how small, per day during 2018.  So, I am going to keep a pen and paper by my bedside, and when I have all these bright ideas in the early hours I am going to attempt to write just one down.  As I add to the list I hope that I will be able to work on one at a time. 

From the visit that I made to the UK, and even though I am sure that my frustrations are only experienced by some, I have deduced that my predicament is not very different from that of many older people in the UK, and all over the world.  So today is the first day of the rest of my life and today I am hoping that LPG will be kind enough to print my letter.  Because seeing it on the Internet will be my first achievement!

LB, Fort Lauderdale, Florida