Rainy Day Activities for Older Adults

A menu for a grey afternoon

• The full puzzle round: all five daily puzzles back to back with a pot of tea — a genuinely satisfying hour
• Letter-writing with the wireless on, finished with the mini crossword as a reward
• A photograph album sort-out — ten minutes of sorting, then a word search, then ten more minutes
• Baking something simple while the sudoku waits for the oven timer
• The armchair quiz: today's trivia questions read aloud to whoever is in the house, cat included

Why puzzles suit weather like this

A rainy day pastime needs to be absorbing enough to hold the attention, gentle enough to be restful, and finishable before restlessness sets in. That is a description of a daily puzzle. Five small puzzles beat one enormous one on days like these — each gives its own little completion, and you can stop between any two of them feeling finished rather than defeated.

For two housebound by the same rain

Rain shared is rain halved. Do the word search as a race, the trivia as a quiz show, and the memory match as a tournament. For the competitive: our trivia gives a score out of five, and a running weekly tally between two people has rescued many a wet Wednesday.