Loneliness is more dangerous to our health in retirement than smoking.

Gally - I relate to your mattress problem. Mine is changing duvet covers with arthritic shoulders. I've pretty much given up on the mattress!

You do get used to managing on your own - I don't even have any neighbours to whom I could turn for help. I can 'walk' a double wardrobe across a room and I can change plugs, fuses, etc. I get an awful lot of help on technical issues, like computer, car, plumbing problems, etc. from my various ex-pat forums - there are always people willing to share their expertise. I do have to ask them to explain things in words I understand sometimes, as the depth of my IT ignorance sometimes baffles them!

Welcome Ladybird. I have found this a supportive community and am so pleased I joined it. Having reduced my work to very part time two years ago I struggled with loneliness. I still do sometimes, a sense that I have fallen off the edge of my own life. I used to be so busy and happy. The change in pension age makes a difference too. Many of my friends who had planned to retire at 60 and would have been available to play with now have to keep working. One of my oldest friends is so resentful that she will have to keep going until 66 whilst I don't that she doesn't want to see me any more.
Gally, I hope the mattress fairy has appeared by now. It must be so hard to be caught out constantly by having to do things alone that John did with you.

I should add that I will be emigrating to New Zealand in a few years to live in my daughter's garden, so I don't face the problem of living alone if I become too ill/frail to be independent. One of my sister's four sons and his wife have said they would welcome her to live with them if it ever becomes necessary. Thank goodness neither of us will have to be 'cared for' in some of the hospitals and homes that have been shown up recently - and now it seems that even people being visited at home by professional carers are being neglected. By the way, this is not a problem which is limited to the UK - many elderly people die in France in extreme weather conditions because nobody checks that they are all right.

Right gally get the kettle on!!! We the magic fairy's are on the way to sort your mattress out

sew your friend should not take it out on you the fact that the Retirement age has increased. Very unfair

Yes it has felt unfair. It has also made me question the nature of that friendship. Problem is it then makes me start to question other friendships and wonder what's wrong with me. Wobbly lip but can't find emoticon for it. Maybe transforming myself to a magic mattress fairy will help

Annobel I'm shy too although I'm a great actress so nobody believes me!
So don't worry about later on, as we can always meet somewhere for coffee on our zimmers! xx

gally How I wish I lived near to you I would send around my big strapping son to do the job for you,he has just finished helping me refit the valance sheet on my bed,I must really buy sheets with valance fitted it would save such a lot of work.

gally I know just what you mean. Living on your own takes some getting used to!
I got the Gardner to turn mine for me. He does the garden on Monday and then on a Friday he does all the littlejobsthatPeter would have done!lightbulbs turning mattresses etc.
If you can afford it it is well worth it to have a handyman annour a week!
I get lonely too. And like Annobel am really shy, I've found gn to be a lifeline whenim really down.
I bless the day my dd suggested I look at you.
Bless you all.

I am very shy in RL, dont seem to have a problem on here I find it really hard to make small talk to people I dont know and sometimes worry that I am taken to be stand offish. Its something I try to overcome but at 56 I dont know that I have come very far

A big to all the fairies - hope the discs haven't slipped!!

Shyness and something about upbringing - don't be a nuisance, don't show off, don't get angry, etc make it hard for me to be spontaneous. I would never dream of just turning up at a friend's house without an invite and even with an invite I'm a bit hesitant. And I always compare my house and its thick patina of dust with the tidy homes of others so don't like having visitors who probably wouldn't want a cup of tea in case they caught something! I need two weeks notice of a visit just to tidy up. I would like to join in as a mattress fairy though as long as it isn't anything like a bedbug.

Bed bugs definitely not allowed in my house grrrranny

granny I think I have got to the stage 'take me they way you find me' if they want to visit no the mattress fairies are very young, very pretty, very thin fairies

grrranny bed bugs bite we on the other hand don't we are very friendly fairy's.

whoops! just caught one of my irridescent (!) wings on the bed post! No matter, i am a fairy so it repairs immediately

That counts me out then

What. The bedpost?

(Laughing out loud at the thought of the galumphing me as a fairy!!)

no, jeni, the wing!

though in real life it would more likely have been the bedpost!!

We can be slim as we can magic the movement of mattresses and don't need huge muscles - have I got that right?

Thats right grrranny we are very delicate, not need for muscle when we have a wand