What are you doing this evening?

A ROUTINE EVENING

I am a very, very old man whose evenings generally follow a particular pattern of predictable activity.

That has been accentuated and external activities more limited since the Covid 19 pandemic. Although the pandemic is ‘over’ and Covid is now deemed ‘endemic’, I don’t accept that it has become any less a social and health concern than was the case from 2020 to 2022.

(My concerns are supported statistically because the numbers of people getting ill and dying from this evil virus are now significantly higher than the number of people succumbing to Covid during its pandemic years. For me, masking up, hand hygiene, trolley wiping and physical distancing are ongoing practices.)

The Covid, retirement, and my appreciation of a quiet life mean that this evening, as is most often the case, I will do the following.

Help prepare our evening meal.

Serve our evening meal with my wife.

Help gather dirty dishes accumulated during the day into the dishwasher and put it on.

Take the dry dishes from the dishwasher and put them away – if not tonight then in the morning.

Make phone calls or send text messages to our children and/or grandchildren.

Read – usually Newspapers online and maybe The Quarterly Essay.

Watch the news bulletins and the “730 Report” on the ABC.

Reflect and think about the day, the future, the past, and various other things that come into my head.

Watch entertainment, usually “Foyles War“, “Frost“, “Midsummer Murders “, “Call The Midwife“, “Death In Paradise“ and as always finish the night viewing with an episode of “Dad’s Army”.

After that, it’s my final ablutions of the day and then off to bed.

This night will be the same as most nights, the variation being watching football and cricket (when it’s being played at a reasonable hour) during these sporting seasons.

You may think my night tonight, as most nights, will be deadly, dull, boring and humdrum. But for me as a person who worked very hard through all of his years of full-time employment and now as a very, very, very old man, I will find this evening, as most evenings, quite satisfying.