Unlike many of my septuagenarian or even octogenarian friends, I never get up much before nine in the morning. This means that my ‘morning routine’ never lasts more than 3 hours – so I’ll tell you about my ‘daily routine’, instead!

My alarm has been set to ‘ring’ at 9. I set this alarm on my iPad and it doesn’t so much ring as play me a little tune. The tune seems to be called Unfold and it seem to do that very thing in a musical way. (If you have a reasonably up-to-date Apple device, it probably appears on yours and you can check it out.)

When it ‘rings’ I do one of several things – I snake my arm out from under the duvet and find the right area to press on, by touch. Occasionally I have to open an eye to guide my hand. If I am in the middle of a dream, however, the little tune joins my dream for a few minutes before I realise I am dreaming and, in that way, am awoken. I always feel really unhappy if I wake up during a dream – dreams aren’t meant to be interrupted in such a way!

There have been times that I have turned off the alarm and have gone straight back to sleep. In this way I have, occasionally, cut my morning routine down to two hours or even – once in a blue moon – to one and a half hours!

But, let’s assume that I am properly awake at nine. I sit up on the edge of the bed and am joined by my bed-partner, Lola the dog. She will have been waiting for this moment keenly. Eventually, I carefully stand up – my blood pressure is usually reasonably low at that moment. I make my way to the bathroom for all the usual reasons then back to the bedroom to open the curtains.

Lola is especially keen for this as she likes to look out into the neighbour’s garden for a cat or two. Dogs don’t seem to be spatially aware when looking out an upstairs window. Despite the fence between our garden and theirs, Lola hasn’t yet realised that the cats are never in our garden – they learned their lesson early in their lives!

If she has seen a cat she growls or barks then jumps down off the chair she uses to look out and rushes to get her red bone which she bites on, practising, I assume, her biting on a cat. Then we go downstairs. I am usually still in my pyjamas, possibly with a colourful dressing gown covering them, depending on how cool it is in the house.

When we arrive at the bottom of the stairs, Lola leads the way into the kitchen and waits for me to open the door into the conservatory. (When the weather is chilly we have to keep this door closed as the conservatory has no heating.) When I have opened the door, Lola often rushes to the doggie door and jumps through. This morning, though, she waits until I open it for her!

Lola spends the next five minutes going around the back garden, sniffing to find out who/what has visited our patch of green before deciding that there is nothing all that interesting to do and comes back inside.

While she has been out I have wandered slowly around the kitchen gathering those items I need for breaking my fast on this fine day – milk, dried prunes, water, a bowl and a spoon, and my cereal of choice as well as a nice mixture of seeds, grains and nuts and a jar of raisins. I tend to have the same thing every morning – it’s easy, I know I like it and it’s quite good for me.

When Lola comes back she often uses the doggie door that goes into the studio, though sometimes she stands at the door into the kitchen, staring at me till I get up and open it for her. She then comes and sits beside me while I have my cereal.

While I eat I check emails then read the latest news. That can take up to an hour but I often get up to make a coffee and move into the lounge to sit on the sofa. I enjoy my coffee – usually my only coffee because I find sleep difficult if I have coffee later in the day (something that has only just happened to my body in the past year or so – I used to be able to drink coffee at 11pm and fall asleep at midnight!)

Lola comes to sit next to me (and make demands on me such as, petting her with one hand while typing with the other.) For the following hour or so, I read, do some of the New York Times puzzles such as Wordle and Connections, and – my favourite at the moment – the Daily Solitaire game on my iPad. (I am determined to win every Daily game no matter how long it takes me!)

Okay – today it is now nearly half past one and I haven’t even gone up to get dressed yet! This happens more often than not. I guess you don’t really need any further description of my day, after all. I will mention that between now and 10pm this evening I will – wash, get dressed, eat lunch, walk the dog, tidy the kitchen, make dinner, eat dinner, tidy a bit, watch tv, read some of the current book, and possibly even have a chat with Julian!

At 10 Lola and I go up and spend an hour winding down. I might read or just sit; Lola often has a nap. At 11 I clean my teeth, clean my face, remove pins or whatever from my hair, comb and brush it, put lavish amounts of an emollient behind my ear to treat the eczema which appears only there, put on my jammies (pyjamas), sing various songs to Lola and nuzzle down in bed to sleep and dream!