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We did A Thing

2 Aug

Joy springs up in unexpected spaces.

Our joy sprung up in the car on the way back from Aldi. A friend phoned us and was talking about another friend who was getting married, after being with their partner for about 20 years. They had been thinking of some of the things you occasionally have to think about as you get older – pensions, and illness and death; and they concluded that getting married was the simplest way to ensure that each of them had the rights they wanted, in respect of the other.

The Captain and I looked at one another after the phone call. We nodded and agreed that this might be the same for us.

If ever I am on life support, I want The Captain, my current life support, to be the one making the decisions.

And that was it. We decided to get married.

And the day itself was filled with such love, such joy from the moment we woke till we fell asleep.

We hadn’t told anyone in advance of our nuptials, apart from two couples who would join us for the day and be our witnesses. So we ended up with the most chilled out, relaxed micro wedding you can imagine.

And it all started in ridiculous style with a pal driving The Captain to the Registry in a vintage red Ferrari, and me in a 1961 E-type Jag. Oh the FUN of purring down the town, and then zooming along the country roads in that wee beastie!

Whatever you are doing with your life this summer I hope you are capturing plenty of joy.

***

Thank you for reading this.

Mostly I blog about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, so if that might be your thing, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.

Do get in touch if you have any questions or comments – I love to hear from you my lovely readers.

Shelves half full

12 Mar

On 24 October 2021 I wrote:

I love these shelves full of jars.

They represent the efforts Past Loïs put in, to preserving the harvest although it’s not always my harvest (we’re not growing our own Seville oranges).

It’s so full of optimism – our cheese sandwiches will forever be improved with a dollop of chutney, there’ll always be a choice of marmalade or cinnamon apple jelly or jelly made from other garden fruits to have on hot buttered toast. My frangipane cakes will have a zing of plums in hooch.

So this afternoon I’ll be making more hot tomato chutney to make good use of my chillies. And because I’d hate a half empty shelf in October.

Future Loïs is always happy when Past Loïs fills the shelves

Where did I learn my joy of preserving the fruits of our harvests?

Mum made wee jars of mint jelly, rowan jelly and redcurrant jelly to have with roast meats, neither of which I have made successfully. And she made marmalade out of MaMade, a big tin of already processed oranges. Dad loved his marmalade on toast for breakfast.

We had a lovely old aluminium jeely pan, which seems to have disappeared, and was some years ago replaced by a modern stainless steel thing. I shall give the modern one to charity one day, as I have a lovely old-fashioned heavy bottomed jeely pan which I like to use when I’m making large quantities. My clearest memory of Mum’s old jeely pan was at Hogmanay when she would always make an enormous vat of pea and ham soup, to be served with buttered rolls in the early hours of the morning. The soup was ladled into large mugs. Mugs seemed a better option than bowls and spoons for our somewhat inebriated guests.

On the shelves under the stairs we always had a selection of jars of dodgy brownish-green goop, usually with a small label identifying what kind of chutney it was, with the month and year it was made (in my experience it was always some years ago). Mum’s shelves till contained many of these jars – did she just not eat chutney until it was vintage? Or did she have a chutney amnesty every 5 years when she’d throw out all the old ones? Anyway, I can’t be too rude about this trait as it is clearly inherited. You should see the boxes of jars of unidentifiable goop that has travelled to Galloway.

Making chutney in the jeely pan
Jeely pan after making damson jelly
Jars of Apple Chutney

Do let me know if you’d like to see more recipes again on this blog. For now, why don’t you have a wee look at my Wild Garlic Pesto vague instructions, and go and forage for some leaves for supper.

***

Thank you for reading this.

Mostly I blog about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, so if that might be your thing, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.

Do get in touch if you have any questions or comments – I love to hear from you my lovely readers.

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Sibling smiles

24 Jan

On 17 October 2021 I wrote:

With my big brother and big sister! Such joy to spend time with them this weekend.

I do love this picture, and will forever treasure it.

So much has happened since that picture was taken. That window in the background is now our bedroom window; we’ve been living here for about 3 months, and are in the process of purchasing the house, so that Mum can continue to pay her care costs.

And just over a month ago I started having funky vision. I say funky, making it sound quite fun. And it has not been fun. Though, in all honesty, initially I was not worried about it at all, believing it wasn’t serious and it would just go in the same way it had just arrived.

But troubling things don’t seem to just go in the same way that they just arrive.

After a trip to the optician followed by an emergency appointment with the eye consultant at the hospital, I was referred for an urgent brain CT scan (over Christmas and New Year). And then a follow up appointment with the eye consultant, followed by an urgent brain MRI scan and then an attempted urgent lumbar puncture (after nearly 8 hours in the day clinic and two consultants literally stabbing me in the back, they admitted that they didn’t have the skills and referred me to the anaesthetist team to carry out the procedure).

The MRI scan had revealed that I didn’t have ‘anything bonkers’ going on in my brain (according to a consultant as he was attempting to give me a lumbar puncture); the lumbar puncture revealed that the fluid around my brain is at considerably higher pressure than is normal, and this is the cause of the funky symptoms (vision loss, headaches, brain-like-soup, memory loss and who knows what else that I can’t currently remember clearly).

Anyway, I now have a diagnosis, and another appointment with the consultant at the eye clinic next week to discuss how we manage it going forward. My life will be different, but it always was going to be different… all our lives keep changing. How we respond to that change is what matters.

***

Thank you for reading this.

Mostly I blog about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, so if that might be your thing, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.

Finally, if it’s not too much to ask (I know, it is, apologies) I would really appreciate it if you could make a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with dementia more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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Life in the Valley (for sale)

9 Jun

Yesterday evening we sat on our Terrace, overlooking 20 miles of the verdant Clyde Valley and the hills beyond. Despite being in Scotland, the sun was warm enough for us to stay out till after 9.30pm.

We have an ‘outdoorsy kitchen’ up on the Terrace – it started with a barbecue made from an old wheelbarrow. A few upgrades later, and we now have a pizza oven, a catering quality stainless steel prep area, a fridge, a small sink, and a gas-fired BBQ cooker. I love cooking, and cook from scratch every day, never quite making the same thing twice.

In the cooler weather we light the chimenea, and wrap ourselves in warm woolly blankets if we need to. The awning protects us from the rain, and there is something utterly magical about being out there, cosy warm and eating our dinner while the snow gently falls all around us.

Earlier in the day we’d been checking our fruit trees – there’s going to be such a good harvest of pears this year, perhaps not so many apples or plums. But each year brings a slightly different harvest in and around our garden, so over the years I have developed recipes to make use of the bounty: Pear Liqueur, Cinnamon Apple Jelly (delicious on hot buttered toast), Spiced Pears; Damson Gin; Wild Cherry Liqueur; Blackcurrant Ripple Ice Cream; Plum and Sour Cream Tart. Nothing goes to waste. And of course we have a freezer full of Bramble and Apple Crumbles.

I work from home, and when I look up from my laptop, the view out the window is of fields, sloping up towards the farm on the top of the wee hill. They are cutting the silage today, so each time I look, there is another stripe added, the dark lines of the cut grass next to the straw yellow of the stubble. And tractors buzzing about, up and down the hill.

Yesterday The Captain came through to my office after breakfast, and insisted I went upstairs to our big bathroom, to look out the window. In the field at the bottom of our garden was a mother deer with her two fawns prinking and pronking about in the long grass. The youngsters tired quickly and lay down out of sight, while she remained vigilant, her head up, and twirling around like a periscope watching for any danger.

What a joy it is to be here. It’s not for everyone, but for anyone who enjoys a more sustainable life, surrounded by trees and fields and wildlife, it’s perfect.

We’re moving on, selling up this countryside idyll. We’ll be sad to leave, but by selling this place, we can continue to pay for Mum’s care costs, keeping her comfortable in this last stage of her long and happy life.

Do you dream of living in the country? We have outbuildings which have outline planning permission, so could be converted to a self-catering rental property for some income, or to a grannie flat, or a fabulous studio or workshop. Currently it’s a rather deluxe hen house for Brutus and his girls, but more on them another day.

Details of Mauldslie Kennels, our home in the Valley, are here.

***

Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching her old Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches.

If you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.

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Me!

6 Jun

On 28 August 2021 I wrote

Me!

By @maximumwolffe a couple of months ago when we were in Gatehouse.

Tomorrow I’ll be another year older, so today we celebrate still being this young!

Birthdays.

For years I’ve thought that I should be celebrating Mum on my my birthday each year. I just happened along, like some side effect of all the work she’d put into carrying me for 9 months. Plus an extra two weeks. Mum was most unhappy about that extra two weeks, and I’ve known all my life that I was two weeks late – it feels like such a part of my identity, and although I like to be punctual, I know that I have used it as an excuse over the years if ever I have been late for things. And as I type this I realise how utterly mad that sounds. But yes, I was late arriving from the very start.

Of course I don’t remember much about my start in life.

I do remember a sense of always trying to catch up, or else being very grumpy that I couldn’t. I guess this is what happens when you are the youngest of three children, all born within three years.

Mum though, Mum was so very clever at treating us equally – one of her catchphrases which we all use to this day is “It’s not a competition”.

I suspect this innate desire Mum had to make us all feel equal came from her own memories of childhood, before her youngest sister was born, and the three girls were described as: Jennifer, the beautiful one, Joyce the clever one, and Alix the middle one.

In Mum’s eyes we were all three clever and talented and funny and creative and would find our way in the world. And she was right, we have done. And I am forever grateful for the (mostly unspoken) love that she has showed us throughout our lives.

***

Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching the Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches. I would really appreciate it if you could make a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

And if you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.

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Puck

23 May

On 26 August 2021 I wrote

Evidently it’s #InternationalDogDay. So here’s our favourite wee ragamuffin, Puck.

Puck came to us in 2020 during that first year of lockdown. Although he was most definitely a lockdown puppy, he wasn’t your classic lockdown puppy, bought just because we were at home all day. He was the replacement for dear wee MobyDog, the Jack Russell who had lived her best life in Mauldslie. We’d always talked of succession planning for when Moby left us, but we hadn’t foreseen it would happen during a global pandemic (of course).

As we went into lockdown Moby seemed a bit out of sorts, not quite as lively as she’d been and having trouble when she was trying to poo (too much information? sorry). Anyway, we called the vet and, it being lockdown, were told to come to the clinic and call them from the car park. A nurse came out and talked to us outside in the sunshine and then Moby followed her quite happily into the building, so the vet could see what they thought was wrong. Moby seemed so happy and carefree. As were we.

The nurse returned shortly afterwards – Moby had a tumour. There were options, and without giving it very much thought we chose to operate (the most expensive option) which would give Moby the best chance of getting a bit more life back again.

Moby died on the operating table – when they opened her up they realised there was no way they could remove everything and enable her to live. She was euthanased.

I had taken Moby for a walk down the woods that morning before we had called the vet. And she was her happy little self, trotting along, sniffing at everything that was the same height as her nose. And within hours she was gone. I was glad that our last sight of her was happily walking away with the nurse in that bright sunshine.

Wee Moby dog living her best life

We had always known that we’d get another dog, and hoped to get a rescue dog. But after several months we realised that there may never be a rescue dog which would be suitable for a home with another dog. And a cat. And many hens. So we put it out into the universe that we were looking for a dog.

And within days our neighbour up the road told us that Wullie’s Patterdale Terrier had just had pups, and we could go along and see them. We chose the biggest naughtiest pup. They had called him Tyson, but as he was born on Midsummer’s Night we renamed him Puck. And he has lived up to his name.

Puck pretending to be a kangaroo – excited that he’s spotted the return of The Captain

***

Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching the Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches. I would really appreciate it if you could make a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

And if you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.

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Paradise (lost)

16 May

On 25 August 2021 I wrote

Another fine day in paradise

Paradise wasn’t lost at all. It was here all along. perhaps we needed a global pandemic and my mother’s dementia to see it, but look! Life was pretty good!

Remember, if you want to find your own paradise and think it might be here, we’re selling the house, with the view, and the fabulous terrace with the views across the Clyde Valley. You’d have to buy your own pizza oven, but it would be worth it! You can get all the details here.

***

I started writing this series of posts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were having their own wee party, jumbling themselves up and then running off into the night, never to be seen again.

Before that I blogged about whatever I was cooking and you can find my recipes here.

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A pet bee

2 May

On 24 August 2021 I wrote:

One of our pet bees, having a snack.

Some days you get to just sit back and enjoy life. I feel enormously lucky that I live somewhere I have such easy access to the life enhancing properties of nature.

In the late summer of 2021 the flowers on our terrace were glorious and we were regularly entranced by the gentle hum of the bees that hopped from flower to flower, drinking in all that nectar. Whichever bee was nearest us was called our Pet Bee. Just recalling this, I can feel the heat of the sun on my skin, and feel I’m blinking with the sunlight. And the bees, I can hear the bees, gently buzzing in my background. Such a happy wee sound.

And, we are selling this lovely haven, so if you or someone you know would like this lifestyle for yourself, here’s the details. Mauldslie Kennels, for sale.

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So many hankies

25 Apr

On 23 August 2021 I wrote

You were just wondering what 62 freshly laundered hankies would look like, hanging to dry on a whirligig weren’t you?

Well here you are.

This is the ‘mostly white’ collection and it includes some beautifully embroidered hankies, probably first owned by my great grandmother. They are the softest, finest cotton although many are past their prime and will be repurposed – I have a plan!

My plan, involving lavender and embroidery swirled about in my brain for months (and months) as a thing I might be able to do. I was hesitant though. I had forgotten how delicate old hankies can be, the cloth is soft and oh so thin, reminding me of how fragile Mum’s skin had become, how easily it broke if she knocked herself at all.

But, when you have so many hankies, what’s the worst that can happen? You end up with one in the bin because you messed it up? That would hardly be a disaster.

So, in time, I embroidered on a number of hankies, and created bespoke lavender pillows out of them.

On the first, I embroidered the foxgloves that Mum had painted in Summer 2020 as part of the 100 Days Project; and on the reverse I embroidered a beautiful Mary Oliver quote for my friend Juliet. After that first ultra delicate hankie, I chose a more robust one, and stitched simpler designs – for Mum (Alix), for her sister (Jen) and for Fenella’s mother (Brenda).

Mum loved to hold the lavender pillow to her nose, to breathe in the sweet scent of those lavender flowers. Latterly she couldn’t remember what the smell was, but she knew she liked it. I do wish that I had made the wee outer covers more like a pillow case so they could be thrown in the laundry and washed as they do get a bit icky with bits of food dropped on them! But hey ho, we live and learn.

These lavender pillow hankies were a labour of absolute love and delight – quick wee projects that gave a second life to some old well-loved hankies. There’s another hankie project that you’ll read about in the future, filled with even more love.. but you’ll have to wait for that one.

***

I started writing this series of posts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

Before that I blogged about whatever I was cooking and you can find my recipes here.

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Self care

21 Apr

On 23 August 2021 I wrote

Today is the proper start of my week’s holiday. And I started in true style, wapping out my breasts and having them squished until just before I squealed.

Seriously ladies, get your mammaries screened. It was 10 minutes of slight discomfort in a Tesco car park and then the rest of the week can only be an improvement.

This post reminds me that there were many other things going on during That Year.

Content Warning: the rest of this post focuses on gynaecological issues.

In April I had nipped home for a few days so I could have a hysteroscopy under anaesthetic. It was scheduled on the first day that the hospital opened up again for day surgery after Covid restrictions, and it was certainly the first day I had been anywhere where I could overhear conversations … sitting in a room wearing a hospital gown, with the door open to the corridor, I could hear all the NHS staff blethering away to one another, some work conversations and also a long chat between the anaesthetist and a nurse about fasting (it was Ramadan, the anesthetist was fasting, the nurse was not this year). It reminded me of Mum and Dad’s parties when we were little, and we sat at the top of the stairs peeking through the fanlight above the dining room door, and we could hear the gentle hub-bub of party conversations, with occasional laughter, clinking of glasses and general joyousness.

The hysteroscopy included the removal of a number of polyps and also the insertion of a coil, to provide me with a hormone booster, “to control your periods” – the original symptom that had led to this point was 6 weeks of constant very heavy and painful bleeding, which had left me drained and uncomfortable.

It had taken well over a year to get to this point, after several consultations and an attempt to carry out the hysteroscopy without anaesthesia. The consultant had said a hysteroscopy can be ‘quite uncomfortable’ but that if it was too much I’d be able to get it done under general anesthetic instead – I was led to believe that this was incredibly unusual. When it came to it, I screamed like a banshee with the pain, grimacing and saying I could cope with it. Why did I do this, and not just immediately say, “No, this is beyond my pain threshold. Get that fucking thing OUT of me”. Later I read the following guidance: “Some women feel no or only mild pain during a hysteroscopy, but for others the pain can be severe. If you find it too uncomfortable, tell the doctor or nurse. They can stop the procedure at any time.” It made me really angry that women are expected to give it a go, to see if they can cope with the pain; I wonder how many actually experience no pain at all? I suspect this policy is a result of a patriarchal health system. And it is not ok.

Throughout 2021 I was constantly tired, and increasingly unable to think straight (which I put down to tiredness); I would wake in the middle of the night and just not get any more sleep, nothing helped. During the day, out of the blue I would suddenly overheat.

It was clear that my hormones were no longer doing everything my body needed of them.

I didn’t get prescribed HRT patches to properly try to sort out my various symptoms until July 2022. The HRT helped me almost immediately, being able to sleep better was transformative. And that rag bag of seemingly unrelated symptoms, which I put down to ‘life’ eased.

But back to August 2021…. I was looking forward to a week of nothing, of staying home and sitting on the Terrace sewing or knitting, of trying out some new recipes, and of generally recharging. It felt somehow selfish, but I also knew that I needed to focus on me for a while, to give me the space and time to recharge a wee bit.

As has been said to me so often, you cannot pour from an empty cup.

My cup was empty, time to fill it up.

The next post will go back to Mum-related dementia-inspired content. I make no apology for this diversion to gynaecological topics. Life throws up surprises. So do blogs.

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