It is, in one respect great to think that everyone is living longer these days, in the West, that is, but, and it is a big but, age has it’s down side.

Take simple things like household cleaning products. These products appear to be packaged only for those who have the strength of Hercules in their hands.

I bought a bottle of household cleaner the other day, and it took me all of ten minutes to open the bottle.  I twisted and turned the top, squeezed the sides and eventually after much annoyance ,I managed to open the wretched thing, by which time I had lost all interest in wiping down the table top and had a cup of coffee instead.

What really baffles me is that as the population is living longer, one would have thought that those who want to sell us stuff would give due consideration to our frailties.

In this Brave and bewildering new World, passwords appear to be of vital importance to enable us to access so many things from bank accounts to phone bills.

Our memories are getting worse so it is  not always easy to remember the different codes and passwords, particularly as we are warned not to write the numbers down, anyway we would probably lose the paper we had written on.

We can send a man into Space, but we cannot come up with a simple way to assist a growing and important section of the population.

Yes, we Are important. We keep the Doctors surgeries busy, usually overflowing, we keep the pill manufacturers working overtime, and many of the ‘Bus companies would be out of business if it were not for the free ‘bus passes for the retired.

For the more able amongst us, we keep many a local restaurant full at lunchtimes  with Special Pensioners Lunches, often frozen Plaice, frozen Chips and frozen peas, which I suppose is what many Restauranteurs think would be a special treat for us poor old Buffers.

I think we deserve more consideration and we should all start lobbying to make life a bit easier for us Oldies.

We need bottles and jars that are easier to open, another method for security other than forgettable passwords, computers which do not baffle us and  generally more consideration for a large section of the Population.

Is anyone listening?

I am having to get used to a completely different way of living.

Like many others of my generation technology is taking over our lives, and if we do not learn, at least the basics, were are going to find modern living very difficult.

Socialising, for the young, at least appears to take place mainly on a mobile device, either a phone or a tablet, and it is becoming quite unusual to walk down the street and not see people with phones glued to their ear. I was in a restaurant one evening recently and their was a couple at the next table, who, after ordering the food and drink, proceeded to get out their mobile phones and either send or receive messages, and during the time they were in the restaurant, very little conversation ensued. Perhaps they were communicating with each other by text?

No one appears to notice what is going on around them, which brings me on to the state of many towns and cities in the U.K.  Looking around me at the decay and desolation of the Town centres brings me to the conclusion that either people do not look at the environment in which they live, as they are so busy on their mobile devices, or they do not care.

How can we blame the Government or the local Councils if we are all prepared to accept closed down town centre shops, run down buildings and charity shops as the only places left to visit in town  c entres?

Surely if we all made enough fuss, attended council meetings, wrote to M.Ps and Councillors on a regular basis the Powers that Be would start and pay attention?

A business woman, a very successful one at that, once said to me,

“if you expect nothing, nothing is what you will get”

Surely the least we can expect is Town and City centres that are alive and interesting and look as if someone cares? Do we all really want out of town shopping Malls, all looking identical whatever town you are in?  In a Country as successful as the United Kingdom, there has to be a few local people up and down the Country who can do something to keep town and city centres alive?

Or are we all quite content to let our environment decay while we sit in front of a computer screen and conduct our lives on line?

No one can change the situation but yourself, but it actually take a little effort. Ideas and complaints are no good without action.

I have had a rather pleasant summer..

In June I travelled through Spain and France, seeing lovely places, meeting interesting people and eating some wonderful food.

In July I travelled, with a very good friend, from Lands End to John O Groats, and we tried not to use any motorways, and it was a most interesting trip. Our final destination was a terrible let down and if  Nicola Sturgeon want to put Scotland on the International map, I suggests she gets someone with a bit of imagination to tidy up John O Groats, which could be a huge tourist asset, despite the weather, but at the moment is, to put it mildly, a dump.

Should you decide to make the trip I suggest that you go and see John O  Groats, but stay somewhere else, as the only Hotel in the place leaves a lot to be desired.

Judging by the political situation at the moment, it would appear, that Politicians of all hues do not have much to offer us all at the moment, and they too leave a lot to be desired.

the infighting  among the Parties is quite bewildering and while we all watch  in amazement, those who have been elected to govern us  do not appear to be fit to run a jumble sale let alone a Country.

I am the first to admit that it cannot be easy to manage the Country, it is hard enough to run a home, but if it is so difficult why are so many Politicians so desperate to get the top job?

They say that the onlooker sees the most of the game, and from where I am standing the game of politics is a pretty awful one at the moment, and the losers are us, the voters.

I would have thought that in Great Britain, with a population of sixty four million there would have bee a couple of dozen brilliant people who could run the Country efficiently.

On the whole, the British are a very moderate race of people, we do not like extremes, whether left or right, but there does not seem to be any moderate intelligent people with the ability to lead the country anywhere on the political scene at the moment.

Mrs May could be our only hope as she appears to be sensible and moderate, but sadly , for the sake of Democracy, we need a good opposition, and that is something that the Labour Party, is not able to provide at the moment.

Mr Corbyn is, I am sure a man of integrity, but as those he leads do not want him to lead them, he is, sadly leading a once great Party into oblivion.

As I said, politics are awful  at the moment, interesting for the onlooker, but not so good for those of us who want good governance.

What with the  uncertainty in our Country, and the terrible prospect of Donald Trump being elected in  America ,together with Mr  Putin’s clever policy of divide and rule the future looks, to put it mildly, uncertain.