Dear LPG,

I have read quite a few messages in your pages about how the whole idea of lockdown has affected people at all stages of life adversely, although for me, it has been a bit like a prolonged holiday.  I have been out to the shops on a once weekly basis and being able to has left me not feeling too bad about being on my own. You might say that I have managed to succeed in learning how to do a lot and get nowhere fast.

I think that a similar thing happened in a smaller way during the first few weeks when I left work.  Retirement initially leaves a lot of people promising to embrace the freedoms of not having to be ready for a long day at work and, until I worked out that I had spent a good six months doing nothing with my time, I was quite happy to, more or less, let life and especially the mornings pass me by.

Like many, the last year has taught me a lot more about what I can do with my mobile phone and electronic tablet to keep in contact and get information, and I know a lot more about what the television has to offer, which I don’t think is a bad thing.  As has been mentioned in your pages by others, I have also found that I have made some close friends out of pre-coronavirus acquaintances owing to the telephone-relationships that we have all been part of.  

However, I have also noticed that I go to sleep later at night and get up later as a consequence most mornings and, now that more people are knocking on the front door again, I have sometimes found myself answering it in my dressing gown at eleven in the morning to accept those Amazon parcels that I have learnt to order.

I know that ‘Freedom Day’ is coming although I have my doubts about it coinciding with midsummers day in the light of all the news of variants that is being talked about.  So, for all those people who have allowed their morning routine to start a bit too near the afternoon, now might be the time to start getting that daily routine shoved back a bit so when normal life resumes, we pensioners are ready for action again.

IB, Kent