Two retired women, and neither of us can remember agreeing to any of it

We are two women, both retired, and we have run the household this way for so long that neither of us can now remember agreeing to it. Nothing was negotiated. It settled, over about three years in our late thirties, and then simply stayed.

Sixty two and sixty five, west London, together twenty seven years, a civil partnership first and a marriage later when the law caught up. One of us decides and the other is relieved about it, and we have had precisely one serious argument about which is which, some time in the late nineties.

What we would like now is company. People to eat with who do not need the subject explained from first principles. We are aware that a board like this is mostly the young and the searching, and that two retired women asking for dinner is an odd item on it.

If there is anything we are useful for, it is the long view. We have been through a redundancy, an illness that took a year, a parent dying badly, and a stretch of about eighteen months when none of the structure worked at all and we kept it up out of sheer stubbornness until it came back. Nobody warns you about that part. We would happily tell you about that part.

Not looking for anybody to join us, in any configuration, and we are gently firm about that. Not looking to be anybody's curiosity. Not looking to travel far in the evenings, because one of us no longer drives after dark.