I’m so glad to be a woman in her sixties during the coronavirus lockdown

It was widely reported last week that those coping best with lock down were the over-sixties. Whoop, just got in there!

I had what they call a “big” birthday just three weeks ago, the day before they closed all the public indoor spaces in London, and thus have spent every single day of my sixties stuck at home, save for my daily walk and my weekly nerve-wracking shop.

If it wasn’t for Mother Nature springing new surprises on us, I would be bored rigid of the same old hikes around the neighbourhood. But this week, alongside a stunning variety of blossom, she threw some sturdy orange tulips into the mix, a perfect circle of sherbet coloured hyacinths in a neighbour’s front garden, and some bright purple irises growing randomly around a tree next to the post box.

Women of my age get a massive kick out of this sort of thing. We are at that time of life when wildlife becomes more important than fashion. I don’t find myself looking at handbags and shoes online, but I do browse gardening sites, seeing what I might possibly grow in patio pots.

Lots of young people couldn’t give a crap about flowers, and I don’t blame them. Falling in love with nature is one of the compensations for ageing and not really fancying the opposite sex anymore – at least not in that wanting to snog their faces off and pull down their pants way that I used to.

Young people living at home must be so frustrated. This is the season when, by rights, they should feeling each other up behind the bike sheds (we’ve done all that), and now in our later decades we have a massive memory bank of high days and holidays to look back on. Quite often I find myself mentally sitting on the Greek beach we last visited in 2018, able to conjure up the sensation of swimming in the sea without even looking at a photo.

It’s the same with my daughter: I miss her terribly, but I know what she feels like in my arms and I allow myself to imagine that feeling as often as I need. Love is something we know well at our age.

We are also closer to allowing our careers to slip away from us. Not me, obviously, quite a few of my mates have got retirement plans on the horizon and the coronavirus lock down is like a dummy run for the days when we are no longer working. Financially, I couldn’t afford not to work, but, if my hand was forced, I’ve realised that I can fill my days quite happily at home. Pottering suits the middle aged in a way that makes the young impatient. These days I can keep myself calm by slowing down and giving in to the fact I have nothing to be in a hurry for. Even cleaning the bath and flossing my teeth is therapeutic. Sometimes I iron tea towels and handkerchiefs because they’re easy and the end result is so pleasing.

For someone of my generation and background, it’s quite a novelty playing this enforced game of house. I find myself turning ever more into my mother, especially in the kitchen, refusing to throw away so much as a radish and making sure left over suppers can be eked out for lunch the next day. Cooking has become more interesting, especially with the delivery of my weekly fruit and veg box containing random supermarket rejects. Because I have no idea what is going to be in this box, opening it is the highlight of my week. This is because I am a 60-year-old woman; I very much doubt a 26-year-old would be so utterly delighted by a great big knobbly celeriac.

There are a number of reasons why reasonably fit over-sixties might find this crisis easier to deal with than younger people. Many couples, such as my partner and I, have yet to downsize and are still living in family homes where, sans kids, we have enough space not to feel on top of each other. There’s only him and me to feed and entertain. As grown adults we know what we like, both individually and more importantly together. For us this includes classic movies, the current series of Masterchef, the Antiques Roadshow and a peculiar selection of Netflix reality shows.

The over-sixties also have hobbies in our favour. We realised in our fifties that a career isn’t enough, that sometimes you need to do something with your hands apart from wrench the lid off the cheese Tupperware. Hobbies are great in a time of crisis and my kitchen table is now dedicated to craft activities, which I’m allowed to leave out, because there are no small children who are going to squeeze acrylic paint all over the sofa.

I never thought we’d be going through something like this during my lifetime. None of us did. But now that we are, apart from the genuinely terrifying health risks, I’m quite glad I’m doing it as a woman in her sixties.