Dear LPG, 

Have you noticed how everything you do takes a bit more effort as you get that little bit older? For me, even that trip to the post box is more of an effort than it ever was 35 years ago when I first moved into my home.  

Back then, I remember a quick trip down to Lewisham shopping centre being something I would not think twice about doing. Still, now it is a significant operation because my legs just won’t let me do the job as quickly or painlessly as they used to. 

I suppose it depends on exactly where the stairs in your hall are stationed, and how steep your flight is, but whenever I go out these days and get back to the front door, I put the key in and stagger to the first available seat I get to.  It is usually not a seat at all.  Often, and without even thinking about it, I find myself perched on the third step up in the hall flight. By the time I put my walking stick down and pick up the post, it is as much as I can do to get that far. My third step up is conveniently placed under the hall light and in front of my telephone table.  Yes, I still have a landline, and despite the other two extensions and my mobile phone, that step is the perfect place to check out the beep when someone has phoned the old-fashioned way and left an answerphone message while I was out. The corner provides an ideal place to prop my bag up against, and that third step is just the right height for me to check inside my shopping trolley and review what I have bought. 

A couple of minutes sitting there allows me to find my second wind. After a glance over my shoulder and up the flight of stairs that reminds me of the effort it will take to get up to my bedroom, I am ready for the trip to the kitchen and the kettle for that all-important cup of reviving tea needed before any other activity. 

I am genuinely grateful for that third step up, but according to my children, it has yet another essential function apart from the one I have just described and getting me up to the first floor of the house. It gets a surprisingly large amount of use when my young grandchildren come to visit.  Their parents use that naughty step approach to chastising the little ones, and it is not unusual to find their 4-year-old out there whimpering as that carpeted surface is transformed into the naughty step. 

I have my reservations as to whether it works, though. The child will be left out there while we pretend to ignore the snivelling, which usually builds until there is some staged crying and particularly loud and defiant self-talk coming from that direction. It is surprising just how inventive those little ones can be when Mummy and Daddy are around.  But I wonder if I am the only grandma who can manage to look after the children without the use of the naughty step when left in complete charge. 

When I was young, a smack sufficed to remind me and my brothers that we were not behaving correctly. I find it interesting that the step that I see as my refuge step when I get through my front door after a bit of an excursion to anywhere these days is also the naughty step when my visiting granddaughter upsets her parents… 

OL, Sydenham.