Dear LPG, 

I have to say that I think far too many of us of whatever age feel the need to worry about all the things that we need to do to remember what we have.  

Over the years of my lifetime, I know that I have managed to accrue more and more things that need to be done.  I think that it all started in 1994 when all shops were allowed to open on Sundays.  That became shopping day for so many and stopped being the day when there was little else to do but go out visit family and slow down.

Once we give up working for a living, we retired people are supposed to be ‘working’ through our years of rest, when time constraints let go of their hold on us, but nearly every seventy-something person and many eighty-something year old people I know are still always rushing around and are preoccupied with getting to so many places that they need to be, and so many people that they need to see, that few of us really slow down a bit until we really have no choice.

Life in general, for people of all ages, should have slowed down in this technological age.  We can shop while sitting at home, watch a television programme when it suits us rather than when it is officially broadcast, visit the doctor via the telephone and many of us even talk to people without having to wait for the answer.  We just text, email or leave a video message and expect and check for a reply a day or so later.  

It seems to me that the more time saving gadgets and concepts we find ourselves with and the more time we save just gives us more of an opportunity to find more things to try to do.  Even meeting up with the family can so often be something that we only get around to at a loud party when there is no time to actually take time to slow down and enjoy the moment.  

Perhaps we retirees, who are nearest to being in the slow lane of life, need to be the family members who help the younger ones slow down a bit.  It is not always easy, but I try very hard to get my children and grandchildren to come together at least once every two months to celebrate being a family as opposed to someone’s birthday or marriage.   Ironically I usually choose a Sunday and either get one of them to organise an ‘everyone at my house’ day (it is often one of my daughters or my son’s houses rather than mine).   I have given up with catering these days, but we do that thing where everyone brings some of the food because buffet-eating seems to be a really important ingredient.  It forces them to put their mobile phones in their pockets for a bit.  Eating is a two-handed job, although that theory is not absolutely fool proof either.  On a nice day we even find ourselves in a park or at the seaside as we go al fresco.

I believe that every member of our nation truly needs to slow down a bit and, even though not everyone is there every time, I am always surprised about all the family news that is missed during all those quick phone calls and video calls that so often substitute as the modern way of keeping in touch.

I suggest that we all need to keep in touch with our friends, families, and enjoinment a bit more often…

PC, Catford