Dear LPG,

While it is true that 2020 has hardly had time to acknowledge its place in history, it has been a year when so many of us have put off many of our plans and dreams while spending a lot of time stuck at home waiting.  It is often taken for granted that we older people don’t do that much with our lives, so the logical thought is that now we are getting to the end of it we will be the age group that will have lost the least when it comes to any missed plans, projects and achievements.

Then there is all the extra time that we spent thinking ,with more of that thought affecting many of us negatively rather than in a positive way. I hope that 2020 is remembered for more than its Covid-19 backdrop, but when we sit back and make an attempt to measure what we each achieved and have to show for this year, I hope that we don’t forget the positives.

By the time LPG is able to print my message so many of us will either be anticipating, or have experienced a very subdued Christmas and, with restrictions likely to continue well into the New Year, 2021 could be envisioned as more of the same, but I want to remind readers of the need to make sure we take everything into consideration when assessing our individual achievements. Many pensioners will enter 2021 with computer skills that they didn’t have last year, because shopping and connecting with friends online became somewhat of a necessity. And with or without computers, the value of acquaintanceships, which have turned in to firm friendships, forged through conversations which would never have had the time to happen, but for the fact that we have spent so much time at home,  may be dismissed out of hand.

Whatever we think of it, the world has moved on since last year and we will never have another version of this one to measure it by, so I suggest that we treat the passing of 2020 in the same way that we should treat every other year. 

I hope that each reader will acknowledge the negatives, but also look forward to the positives as we make our plans for 2021…

RP, Croydon

LPG found a few positive things that were invented in the year 2020…

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