Dear LPG readers,  


I have a question for you today.  Are there any other readers who seem to struggle to keep up with the things that they used to do? 


I am getting up later and getting bored more easily resulting in my not getting half the things I used to be able to do done.  While some of my friends agree with me when I say that there are not enough hours in the day, I have worked out that an almost equal amount of others complain about the exact opposite. 


It is true that even if you don’t notice, the hospital, dental and other health appointments tend to come at us more frequently as we age and, you can almost guarantee that they will crop up just on the day that does not suit, no matter how far in advance they are booked.  They still seem to end up at the most inconvenient time of the day on the most inconvenient day of the week by the time there are only a couple of days left before you actually have to keep them comes around.  With lots of choice because of the 3, 4 or more months’ notice that so much of the NHS have to offer when they are making them for you, you would think that working around them should all be good and we often complain about how long we have to wait.  Then, as we get closer to the appointed day, the things we promised to do and our weekly routine is bound to get in the way.  


I am writing this in June when the days are at their longest and that used to make a bit of a difference for me.  These are the days when it is light for the longest and that should make a difference shouldn’t it?  But it does not. I still find myself perpetually trying to catch up with what I have to do.  


As I said I have a few friends who have exactly the opposite problem and I was talking about this with one of my best ones recently.  We go to a couple of dinner clubs together each week and that gives us an opportunity to talk about such things and keep up with each other’s progress.  When I said all this to her, she told me that she gets everything she wants to done.  She tells me that, once she has done her housework there are potentially many other things that she could do, but if she does not get anything else done, she does not worry because she knows that the only person she is letting down is herself.  She tells that she can find so little to do these days when she is at home that she gets bored and finds herself in a ‘can’t be bothered’ mood all too often.   


We have each tried to adopt a bit of each other’s point of view recently but without a lot of success.  she remains relaxed, to the point where she is bored while I still struggle to get everything I think I need to do finished.   


I wonder if there might be a reader who can offer either of us a bit of advice as I suspect that my friend and I are not the only people with a problem at either end of this spectrum… 


PW, Bellingham