Do you ever wonder where the time went? How on earth did we manage to stay afloat during those working years? And now we’re retired, well the time just flies… sometimes not enough minutes in the day!

If your partner is in care as my Dorothy was for a while now some years back, you will know all the time you spend travelling there, visiting, then all the way back home and the loneliness that follows, back home, alone. Then wondering what to do first…make the bed, do the washing-up, do the laundry or, heaven forbid, wipe the accumulated dust off everything in the house! Even thinking about what to do about a meal is difficult – and you’re out of milk, and, and….

But now there’s just me. No more daily visits. And I’ve learned how to adapt to that state, almost. As for busyness, well, I’ve substituted visiting Dorothy by calling in on as many ‘shut-ins’ as I know. Even those numbers are now dwindling, but there are still plenty to keep me busy. All lovely people, friends I’ve met over time, who are now in assisted living places. Come to think of it, I’m also gratefully living in a minor assisted style, but still in our most recent marital home, a gated suburban estate and, at present, reasonably active.

In fact, it is hard, sometimes, to keep track of my activities! I wonder how my older friends manage? It took me a while to master the ‘Calendar’ app on my phone, but without it I would be lost (in time!). That app is replicated on my laptop and my iPad. It’s like magic: when I make an entry in one of those devices, all three get updated! But, and there is a caveat, it requires me to actually enter the information, and sometimes I forget to do that! Which means I can miss an event; an embarrassment that can be critical and costly, like a dental or medical appointment!

Don’t laugh now, but I confess to also having an old-fashioned “week to a page” handwritten diary always open on the kitchen bench. It can be tricky when I scribble an entry there and forget to update my electronic diary, so I try to be meticulous about adding it to everything! I have a few fortnightly and monthly commitments and it’s so good to enter the information once and have them ‘auto inserted’ to the forward dates in the calendar app. It is so useful to look at a date, weeks ahead, see something already entered, and know to not schedule another event that day.

So, yes, most of my days, I’m busy (often reading or dozing) but, ask me what I’m doing next week and, if I can find my phone and remember what that calendar icon looks like… well, then I can tell you what I’m up to on that day. But please don’t ask me when I’m busy…….