Dear LPG,

I think that this can be the loneliest time of the year for many older people.  The days are still short, Christmas and New Year are over and all the family members will be back at school or work again.

I live with my daughter and family these days.  I think that this must be better than living on my own, but I still often feel as if I am a bit of an outsider once they are all busy going about their business.  During the pandemic when everyone was at home, I suddenly felt that I had a new purpose in life, but now I am back to spending my days alone which makes each one seem longer.

Before the pandemic forced us to stay home I seemed to have quite a busy lifestyle myself, and at the age of seventy I had spent some eight years establishing a weekly routine for myself, but after all the time we have spent at home I seem to have got out of the habit and I think that that is the big problem for many people of my age regardless of whether they live alone or with family.

Now that we oldies have had a couple of years to learn how to stay at home, the practise of getting out and about seems to be much harder to get going again.  With many of our day centres and lunch clubs having closed their doors for what seems like ‘ever’, for some reason it is much easier to talk to my friends on the phone and get the children to bring the shopping home.

They say practise makes perfect and I also now believe that continued practise is also very important.  The day that one of us decides to sit in the warm and get back to the routine tomorrow is often the last day that we make the effort, and we have had a two-year reason to do just that.  But it is also important to get back on the horse as they say.  If not, we may well be the ones who never gather the courage to ever do it again.

This winter has left us with dull days, when you look out in the mornings to see really grey clouds but, with that comes days with no ice for us to slide on and a little bit of the middle of the day with a glimmer of light.  So if there are any other pensioners who can recognise that streak of laziness, or fear, that I am talking about, now might be the time to get out there again even if popping off to the shops is the only option open to you. 

BH, Lewisham Park