How do I know it's Monday? And does it matter?

I'm 'retired'. I could blog about the definition of retirement. From my perspective it means not getting up five days a week, putting on work-clothes, slipping into work-thinking, leaving the house to drive somewhere, throw coffee and - if I'm lucky - a sandwich down my neck as the only way to get through the day, arriving home with barely enough energy to read a book. I means not thinking about work before I realise I'm awake. No, I don't do that any more.

Which means it is easy for one day to melt into another. I can sit in bed with a cup of tea and book in the morning, struggle downstairs for breakfast when I'm hungry. A friend might ring - shall we have coffee? Why not? The sun is shining; the forest is wonderful at this time of year. Maybe a grandchild will come over and we can kick through the leaves and come home with bits in our hair to warm our fingers on mugs of hot chocolate.

But, you are wondering, when do you write? Is that not work? In a way it's work - it gives me a purpose; I carry on doing it even when I don't feel like it, or the story won't tell itself. But I carry on because I know that such days are temporary, that I love the way words come out to play when I'm not looking - I write because I breathe. I don't sit with the computer at nine o'clock and refuse to move until lunchtime.

This is a long-winded way of saying that one day can be very like the next. Does that matter? Yes, I think it does. I still need a rhythm of weeks, a way of noticing the passing of time, anchors that make sense of seasons. I would feel too floaty without that. And so I have landmarks: the market on Saturday, choir on Monday evenings, a book group on Tuesdays - you get the picture. All activities I enjoy, of course; but they are more than that - they structure my week.

But I don't automatically know what day it is as I wake. I have to stop, as I pour my tea, and think - what day is it, what shape will it take? What choices do I have in that - to do something differently? To take myself off with a book, or sit at my computer and write?

It is a conscious decision to formulate my week like this. I reassures me, roots me in the reality of time passing. And you - are you happy to float along (lucky you!) or do you need to punctuate your days as I do?