Dear LPG,

I know it is all coming to an end now, well the aspect of Covid-19 that dictates that we have to stay hidden away from everyone. Although I think that, if we are honest, what needs to be said is the government is trying its best to get us out and about even though the threats of infection are still out there.

Through the whole thing there has been something troubling many people apart from the fear of getting it or learning that someone you know has, and that is the effect that the resulting isolation has had on so many of us.

I live in a sheltered housing complex and I know that I Identify with many other elders when I say that it is really odd to spend so much time on your own even though you know that, but for the wall, you are within earshot and talking distance of your neighbours who you are not allowed to see.

I know that the phone has become the best friend that so many of us have at a time like this.  That, and the television, has kept so many of us as positive as it is possible in such times, but escape was important to me too. 

The little things that we are so used to have to cease before you stop taking them for granted.  I remember the pre-Covid days when the scheme manager would knock on the door each weekday morning just to see how each resident was and share a couple of words.  Often, when in the communal lounge, we neighbours would talk amongst ourselves about how we did not really feel like it sometimes, but we would all make the effort to get up and dressed earlier than was necessary, and I remember some residents wishing that her visits could be a little later in the day, but I am sure that, like in our building, even the community rooms now have doors which display ‘No entry ‘signs.

Stretching our legs and keeping up the practice of taking a daily walk was highlighted as important by our landlords when our scheme manager stopped visiting and the weekly news sheets became their only way of communicating.  Taking a walk around the empty corridors was an activity that I found as solitary as the confines of my flat as the months went on and I found myself asking the age old rhetorical question, ‘What’s the point really?’

So I invented a point.  I started cutting up small business-card sized pieces of paper and writing little messages of positivity on them to post through or put under each of my neighbour’s doors which gave my corridor walk a point even though I think that they must think me quite bonkers.  It helped me because it was another way of feeling connected although I thought that they must have thought me quite mad when I got started.  But then I began to get the odd message back and although I started by signing them, once they all knew it was me, I did not bother. 

It has taken a little time but now I get the odd one back, some acknowledging the one I first posted but others remain quite anonymous, and when we telephone each other there is something else to talk about.  In fact, the practise has been gathering momentum and little anonymous notes are being received by neighbours who are adding questions such as ‘Did you send me the note about hoping I enjoyed my breakfast this morning?’ or ‘was it you that left me the note about God being with me yesterday morning?’ to our inter-building telephone calls.  The truth is that we can’t keep up with whom wrote what and trying to find out has become another reason to pick up the phone. 

It is good to know that I started a trend that my neighbours are following and I suggest that you try it if you live in sheltered accommodation…

CJ, Brockley