No.100, Monday, 16th. March 2026

As a retired person on a low income I find one day is pretty much the same as another, and routines are embedded. I ask myself if that makes me sound dull and unadventurous and the answer – at the moment – is a somewhat vague “on the whole, no”.

In my immediate pre-retirement era I was working for a deeply unpleasant Managing Director. I was expected to be at my third-hand desk in a warehouse at a set time, and to leave at a set time. The depot was a steel box that was unbearably cold in winter – no heating – and unbearably hot in summer. I was routinely instructed to do something that I am not good at: lie to clients and customers. We were ripping off tax payers and energy-bill payers, and there was nothing I could do about it. Most of my carefully researched ideas were ridiculed or simply ignored, usually with a good serving of sardonic humour. I served seven years in that gulag.

My working life as a whole was not like that, other than the routine that, it seemed to me, was largely unnecessary. My work in strategy and policy development could have been done at any time of the day or night. I also knew that if the policy I was developing was to be successful I would need to collect as much data and information as possible – including the opinions of those impacted. That meant meeting people from all walks of life. I enjoyed that and I was good at it. An enforced routine was unhelpful, but my managers were more enlightened.

So, when I look at myself now, I have come to realise that my routine is not dull or boring. It is MY routine. I set my priorities and I get things done, whether it is writing this, researching a subject to ensure I don’t inadvertently misinform, reading a book, listening to an album released yesterday, watching a film – or housework. Now that I am cheered up, I can be less vague about my answer, which is now “most certainly not!”.