Dear LPG

I recently read what WG had to say about our space, and her thoughts stopped me in my tracks for a while.  She talked about fitting into two of the more depressing groups where so many of us older people manage to find ourselves making up the statistics, and I fit perfectly.  I am yet another person who lives alone in my own home.

The territorial feeling that many animals have, including humans, also comes to the fore because home is one of the few things we have the most control over.   Being king or queen of your castle is a well-practised state of mind, well before it has to be practised alone and if you have reached this life status, having lost someone who did all the housekeeping for you. At the same time, the territorial aspect of ownership is vital; the ability to keep up the standards of tidiness can be lost so gradually that the owner of the space can miss it altogether.   

Within the limitations of our finances, health and a few other considerations, nobody has the right to tell us how to live there, what we do there or what it should look like and while, as we get older, so many decisions and choices can be taken from us this is usually one of the last to go.  It is so easy not to realise how the organising and cleaning can be neglected when no one else is checking your standards.  

WG’s idea of a regular ‘at home’ session with your friends and family can make a difference even if you are a man.  It doesn’t have to be a football gathering with beers all around and everyone shouting ‘Goal’ at the telly, and you don’t have to provide the drinks.  If you don’t know which biscuits or cakes to choose and can’t make good tea, ensure a couple of your guests are ladies, and they will do it all for you.    

I told you that the article resonated with me, but I just remembered that I had to explain why.  I was so ready to get out and about after the pandemic that I was hardly ever home except to sleep, but no one ever really visited me.   I still regularly meet friends, do a bit of grandchild sitting, visit a few social clubs and meet my friends for odd evenings in the pub. It all worked very well until one day when my neighbour stepped in and made one comment that got me thinking about how my housekeeping standards might have slipped.  

She is also in the stat club above and told me it took a comment from someone who visited her to get her thinking.   She invited me to join another club which she was part of.  She now has four friends who re-enact the television show ‘Come Dine with Me’ every month without the dinner and marking aspects thrown in.   I include myself when I say that we visit each other’s houses once a week, which helps us to ’keep up appearances’. 

We do have a couple of rules.  The most important is that there is no getting out of it when it is your week to host and the host chooses the activity.  This year, they have included watching a particular television programme together, playing cards, scrabble or chess, and, oddly enough, the odd meal or about of morning coffee or afternoon tea.  We have even had the odd mini-evening birthday celebration with a drink or two.   

The most important thing is that even though we don’t judge or measure each other as they do in the programme, we tend to notice that our host’s organisational standards are slipping a little on the odd occasion. The visitors often roll their sleeves up to push those standards up to speed again.

Now that I am part of the group, I see the value in having a few people around now and then.  Knowing you are having visitors inspires you to push the Hoover around more often.

Even the king of the castle needs a few subjects to notice when standards are slipping. 

NM,  Downham.

In case you have never seen ‘Come Dine with Me’, LPG found an episode…

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