Tag Archives: 100 Days Project Scotland

Feeling my way

15 Nov

On 16 November 2021 I wrote:

Slow but steady progress. At this stage I’m still sort of feeling my way and working out how I’ll do each element of the design.

On Sunday when I talked to Mum she hadn’t realised it was Remembrance Sunday, she said they hadn’t done anything at the home (but she’s not the most reliable witness). When I asked if she was wearing a poppy she just didn’t understand why I was asking her, she couldn’t connect poppies to Remembrance Day.

Dementia is so strange, how it robs people of their memories, of their ability to communicate, of whole parts of their lives, their personalities.

But at another level there is still so much of Mum there, and so much to love. So I try to accept her and love her for who she is each day, and remind her that she is loved, so very loved.

I can’t focus just now on who she was, what is gone already. There will be plenty time for that.

It’s odd coming back to this, three years later; and many months after I last wrote about Mum and her dementia.

So, three years on, Mum has all but disappeared. Certainly it is now almost impossible to see the woman who brought up three kids, who was Provost of our town, who campaigned tirelessly for this local community, who could draw anything, who welcomed so many people into her life, who was so interested in other people, and who could inspire a room full of people when she spoke. Mum used to lay a wreath on behalf of the town council at the War Memorial. And now….

These days, sometimes she wakes when I visit her, and she occasionally smiles at whatever I am knitting, and very, very occasionally says a few words. She may or may not know who I am, but I think she is aware that I am someone who loves her. And if not, then I tell her. I tell her over and over again. For she will forget as soon as I say a thing, that has been her life for several years now.

It was the Remembrance Day Service on Sunday, at the War Memorial which is just a few yards from our home. The day was drizzly but not too cold. So, having thought about wearing Mum’s Karakul fur coat (which she used to wear only to the Remembrance Day Parade and to funerals in the cold winter) I decided against it. I’m guessing that damp Karakul would not be the nicest thing, though perhaps our dogs would love it. I have wondered if perhaps I should dispose of the coat… but since it probably belonged to my great grandmother so no animals died for it in my lifetime, I think perhaps it would be ok to wear it, as Mum did, at funeral and Remembrance Day services when it is so cold you can’t feel your fingers.

At the end of the service on Sunday, when the wreaths had all been laid, we’d had Flowers of the Forest on the bagpipes, and the Last Post on the trumpet; the colours had been raised again, the Minister spoke, ending with ‘WE WILL REMEMBER THEM’. At that precise moment we all heard a ‘whup whup whup’ noise above us, coming up from the High Street. It was one of the swans, giving us a perfectly timed fly past, Gatehouse-style.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 

We will remember them.

***

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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Remembering Remembrance

14 Apr

On 14 November 2021 I wrote:

On Remembrance Sunday I used to take part in the parade at home, attending the church service and then marching up to the memorial.

When I first lived in London I went to the Cenotaph most years, I felt lost if I didn’t mark this day somehow, it’s in my blood. Back in the 80s there were far fewer people at the Cenotaph and most years I would stand just yards away from the royal party. I wasn’t there for them though, it was about family, about tradition, about giving gratitude to those who made such sacrifices.

This year I’m at home and watched the parade on telly, thinking mostly about some of Mum’s stories of the war… when she and Jen lay in the field in Hampshire, looking up at the planes (that was the Battle of Britain), of the time she was at boarding school in Helensburgh and her father’s ship dropped anchor and he came to pick her up. The headmistress was quite in a tizz at this handsome man in naval uniform evidently.

But mostly I think of memories themselves… mum is losing so many of hers and I feel a need to hold on to them, not to let anything go. So today I’ll start stitching this geranium which sits in her conservatory. I love the smell of geraniums.. we always had a couple of enormous fragranced ones in the porch at Fleet Street. And that smell is the smell of a happy childhood, of coming home.

No bonus pics today, but come back later and I might post some of my ancestors in uniform.

The geranium is all stitched now, and I love how it climbs up over the pocket of the smock. The actual geranium is gone. We managed to keep it alive for a year or so after Mum went into the care home… but had left it in her conservatory and through the winter it lost its will to live and that was that.

Mum was rarely sentimental about plants, or anything really. So she would have been quite ok about it being thrown out and making space for something new. I’m less good at this, and still live surrounded by too many things which should have been thrown out years ago, or at least months ago.

I’m sure I will write more another time about the table cloth and crockery that was only used on special occasions. And in all honesty special occasions really just meant Christmas and Hogmanay. And to this day I quite enjoy polishing silver, feeling that same frisson of excitement that we had as we presented our best selves over the Christmas season. Gleamy silver, shiny glassware and all our eyes glittering with excitement, reflecting the lights on the Christmas tree.

And yes, I still have most of the Christmas decorations too. Of course.

***

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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Oh the treasures!

30 Oct

On 14 October 2021 I wrote:

My smock has wild strawberries! All to do now is to soak it to remove the plasticky stabilizer stuff that I use to transfer the design. And then onto the next design.

Your bonus pic today is a corner of our living room… the lamp base came from Dad’s parents in Germany.. I love how it seems the whole base is lit up from the inside when it’s just the reflected light from the gold inside the modern shade.

Mum’s parents returned to Scotland from South Africa when I was 12. Pickfords had packed up all their stuff and the whole house was full of tea chests. Each day after school for that first week I would come home via their house and would unpack a tea chest with Gran. Oh the treasures! This vase with the glads in it was one. We’ve always called it the majolica vase but I’m not certain it is. Mum gave it to me some years ago when she began dispersing her things.

The wine cooler was a gift to my parents on their silver wedding anniversary.

And the decor was created by The Captain… this is the drinks cupboard that he made, including the waney edged top which I love.

I’m just going to leave that there.

I have so much going on in my life just now, with more unhappiness than I thought it was possible for me to bear. And I discover that when all this is going on I kinda lose the ability to write anything about it at all. And there was me thinking that I could channel the negative emotions, and lay my vulnerability out there. I think because it impacts other people, it feels like I should not share, that I have to edit what I say, how I say it, have to curate this bit of my life on here. And if I feel unable to express things just as I feel them, then I am lost here.

I also have a few other priorities for my time at the moment, and so will focus my attention on the things that really have to be done. And then, when the time is right, I’ll come back to this. But there may not be many posts on here for a while.

***

Thank you for reading this.

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.

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 this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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The luxury of pockets

23 Oct

On 12 October 2021 I wrote:

I love making these leaves, and I’m so amazed that they actually look like leaves!

I was less than pleased when MisoCat decided to walk across my lap as I was stabbing, and managed to pull one of the previous leaf’s threads with her sharp wee claws… but perhaps only I will ever notice.

I bought a remnant of luxury faux fur this weekend. It reminded me so much of the bonus pic chinchilla fur stole which belonged to my German grandmother. It’s the softest, most sumptuous thing, and it’s always felt so terribly glamorous to me. And, our sensible glamorous foremothers had pockets!

My intention is to make a tribute faux fur stole, with a bright satin lining. And pockets. Possibly even beautifully hand-smocked pockets, we’ll see.

I’ve still not done anything with that luxury faux fur, but it’s packed up in a crate and moved down to Mum’s house, where we hope to be living by Christmas. It’s been rather alarming seeing the amount of fabric and yarn that I have, waiting for me to have time to make them into something perfect. Mum used to say that we should not let perfect be the enemy of the good, and I think I have been more able to live by that maxim in recent years, when it has felt that very little can be anywhere near perfect, and actually that is all just fine. We have a pretty good life, and long may it continue.

But those pockets, are they not the most adorable things?

***

Thank you for reading this.

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.

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 this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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It will be quite different

18 Oct

On 11 October 2021 I wrote:

Each day is another day forward.

Mostly I did some knitting today, but I fit a few minutes of good stabbing too.

And already I’m thinking of the next design. It will be quite different.

And still, it will be quite different. Life I mean.

Two years ago when I first wrote those words, they probably were only about the design for the smock. And yet we all knew that all our lives would be quite different. I think there was already talk of the new normal, whatever that was going to be.

We had come through almost a year of being painfully aware that our lives were changing dramatically … Mum, who had always been the centre of our worlds, was no longer able to hold that centre. And each week, she changed – the essence of her was still at her heart, and it still is, but more bits around the edges seemed missing with each visit.

We knew the future would be different, without Mum in it. But at this stage, despite how much of her we felt we had already lost, we could not conceive of a world in which she wasn’t breathing life into it.

And now… I still can’t conceive of that world. Mum still breathes life into my world whenever I visit her, but also at random moments, as I recall things about her. And yet it feels like she has so little breath left.

In so many ways our lives are going to be different.

***

Thank you for reading this.

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.

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 this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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Winning a piglet in a raffle

9 Oct

On 10 October 2021 I posted:

The wee wild strawberries have a few more stems.

I don’t see Mum so often any more, but have a quick phone call with her most days… initially I found the calls stressy but actually now they are fine. Mum isn’t always terribly communicative, but is always so pleased that I called; and even more pleased if I tell her I’m coming to see her the next day.

I saw her this weekend. We hadn’t read her memoirs to her since she moved into the home. They had been such a comfort to her while she was in hospital, and also such a crutch to us, in that we could visit her and read them out loud when we had little else to say.

Yesterday I started reading them to her right at the beginning again .. as I read the familiar opening words, “I was born on …” she gently closed her eyes. She was like a sunbather, bathing in the glow of the stories. Her stories, her words.

We didn’t get far, just her first years in South Africa before she came back to Scotland when war broke out. There’s a chapter about employees on the farm, and then a much longer chapter about the various animals, starting with the cats which she taught to do tricks, inspiring her to want to be a lion tamer when she grew up. And the guinea pigs that came to an unpleasant end. Many horses, including her naughty pony, Tiny, who would stop at a puddle, then paw at it with his hooves, before lying down and rolling in it… mum got very good at jumping off Tiny when approaching puddles.

And there were 4 pigs, including one that ‘someone had won as a piglet in a raffle’! I want more piglet raffles in my life!

Anyway, talking of pigs… I did some more tidying and clearing in mum’s house, and decided that it was probably sensible to empty her salt pig, which has sat beside the Rayburn all my life. I think she got it as a wedding present, and I expect it’s never been empty since then. So much salt! So many meals. So much love. It may be empty for now, but it feels like a bottle with a genie snoozing in it to me.

Bonus pic = the salt pig.

Two things to say as I sit here two years on from that original post.

Thing One – that salt pig will be filled up with salt again this weekend. It was always just the salt pig, and was just there, like old wallpaper. But forever in my future, I will remember that day, pouring the salt down the sink, washed down with big catch-your-breath-sobs. Always, there will be the muscle memory of those tears, of that moment as I knew my mother wasn’t coming home.

Thing Two – reflecting on ‘Mum not being terribly communicative’ I remember that I was still occasionally phoning her at this point, not every evening, tho most of them. She had lost the ability to contribute something new to the conversation, but could still respond, and talk in full sentences. There might be some sentences that were difficult to unravel, or which seemed to be based on something which probably hadn’t just happened, but that mattered not to me. If she wanted to tell me about a long dead relative or King Haakon coming for tea, then I wanted to hear about it. But her communication has deteriorated so much now – for a while she could still say words, but found it hard to create sentences; we would get odd phrases, and some short statements that seemed not to fit with anything else around us. On my latest visit, her words were increasingly slurred, so each word is now difficult to interpret. And sometimes a single slurred word will hang in the air, and before she finds the next one it has all gone. But she was wide awake throughout this visit, and listened as I told her about our forthcoming move, about my trip to London, about being a finalist for an award… and then back around again to our forthcoming move, back to Gatehouse. I said ‘It will be so lovely. To be nearer you’. She looked at me with her watery grey-green eyes, and slowly, with a long pause between each slurred word said, ‘You are so lovely’.

Yup, she breaks my heart every time.

***

Thank you for reading this.

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.

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 this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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The In Betweeners

2 Oct

On 2 October 2021 I posted:

The third (and final) wee strawberry is complete so this weekend will be all about the many shades of green on leaves and stems.

The bonus pic today is from last weekend’s breakfast on the beach. We brewed up fresh coffee (Rwandan beans from @rafikicoffee_) and although we drank from disposable cups (don’t judge me. The Captain worked in the packaging industry and we’re using up old supplies) we used proper heavy linen table napkins. This one must have belonged to my great grandmother, given her initials are embroidered in the corner. It’s dated 1937. The stitching is incredibly fine, much finer than I could manage. But… I have many linen napkins, mostly un-embroidered, so perhaps I will ensure future generations know they passed through my hands by adding my initials to them? Or a swallow, swooping across the corner. Or a wee wild strawberry.

Lately I’ve been reflecting on being in an “in between” stage of our lives.

It’s not always a comfortable place to be – the anchors that you have gotten used to using, to hold you secure, are pulled up (albeit possibly only temporarily). You’re not sure that your navigational system is going to get you back to safety… you hear these days of SatNavs that take you on most inappropriate journeys.

But there is also a freedom that you have during a period of limbo. While everything is in the air, you have the space to think more creatively, you are not bound so much by what has always been, and what you had always unthinkingly assumed would be. When nothing is secure you can throw it all up in the air… and while it is up there, floating about, you can go foraging for new things, for wild things. Or just pick up the old things that you really want in your future life.

Specifically we are between homes. We are living in the home that The Captain made his home 23 years ago. When I say ‘made’ I mean it literally – he practically built the whole place, from a run down wreck. We hope to move into what has been Mum and Dad’s home sometime before Christmas.

And during this limbo period, much needs to be done. There are all the legal and administrative aspects of selling a home, much planning, many spreadsheets, all the lists! And then there are days and days of going through STUFF, deciding what to keep, what to throw, what to try to sell. But instead of getting bogged down in those tasks, I find myself more and more just thinking about what life will be like on the other side, once we have moved.

Daily I say to myself, “I’ll do that when we are settled in Galloway”. And some of this is valid, though possibly only in my own head (buying a bike makes sense once we live somewhere I will feel more confident and happy cycling on the roads, and where we don’t live half way up a hill). But I’m sure there are many things I could just get on with now in my life. And the lesson I am taking from this is that if there’s something I think I’ll enjoy, I should just get on with it. So long as no-one else gets hurt in the process.

This is actually the one piece of advice my Grandmother gave me the night before I left home to go to University.

She told just 18 year old me, “Now don’t do anything you’ll regret, Loïs. But remember the only things you regret in life are the opportunities you missed. If it makes you happy, do it.” So, I am going to embrace new things, open my eyes to new opportunities and possibilities. We are going to live our best life.

***

Thank you for reading this.

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.

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 this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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A jar of hope (and a radioactive bum)

28 Sep

On 30 September 2021 I wrote:

Wild strawberry season might be over but this one is still bearing fruit.

The edges of Mum’s garden are abundant with wild strawberries.. I love how enthusiastically they spring up and how generously they provide such delicious wee fruit.

Photo 2 may look like a Jar Of Not Very Much. But look closely. Although it’s an old mustard jar (Colman’s English) those are not mustard seeds in the bottom.

They are pearls. Seed pearls. And each one was found in a mussel picked on the Solway coast, mostly at Carrick.

As children we were often out foraging, getting food for free as Mum called it (after the Richard Mabey book). Those wee islands in the third photo are mussel beds, or they were in the 1970s. And at low tide you can walk to them, even if you’re a short-legged wee girl. So we ate a lot of mussels when there was an R in the month.

The Solway coast is opposite Windscale (as it was back then) and mum was vaguely worried about the mussels being radioactive. So she invited our science teacher round for supper, on the condition he brought his Geiger counter.

He duly arrived and set up his ‘probe’. He sat it in the sofa, next to my bum to get a background reading… and off it went bleeping and clicking and flashing.

Then he stuck it in the bucket with the freshly foraged mussels. And everything slowed down.

Conclusion: my bum was more radioactive than the sea near a nuclear power station. Hurrah! I think.

Back to that jar. Whenever we found a pearl in a mussel we would save it in the jar. We were going to make the most beautiful opulent seed pearl brooch. Or a tiara. A whole crown! With sceptre and orb to match, why not?

So that jar I found tucked away at the back of the cupboard? That’s a Jar Of Hope. And it will never be empty.

We’re still in the process of clearing Mum’s house, in advance of us moving there. I re-found this Jar of Hope the other day. It won’t surprise you to know that it was put firmly in the Keep pile.

***

Thank you for reading this.

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.

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 this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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Spoonfuls of fluff

25 Sep

On 29 September 2021 I posted:

I’ve been distracted with other projects but here we are stabbing the wee strawberry again. Not a euphemism.

We took Mum out for a coffee on Monday. Well she had a hot chocolate. She looked so thrilled when this enormous big cup and saucer arrived in front of her. I looked alarmed, wondering if she could manage it.

And then her muscle memory kicked in and she picked up the teaspoon and spooned spoonfuls of hot chocolate fluff from the top of her drink into her mouth. She did this so slowly, so precisely like she wasn’t really sure it was real.

But I’ve seen her do this so many times before. Such a simple pleasure, spooning the fluff off the top of your drink and feeling it melt on your tongue. I do it too, when I have a cappuccino. Always have. Never thought before now that I maybe learned this from Mum.

The giant cup reminded me of a childhood weekend treat we occasionally had, possibly only in the winter. Mum had two ENORMOUS cups and saucers, bought in a French flea market I think. And she would make café au lait (hot milk with instant coffee and sugar) and we would drink it out of these cups as big as our heads. I reminded Mum of this treat. But it’s gone, she couldn’t remember it. And that doesn’t matter. We enjoyed those times, she made them special. And I now thank her for that.

And the bonus pic is the view looking west from Carrick Shore, at breakfast time on Sunday.

I loved that moment of joy with Mum, watching her spoon the fluff off the top of her chocolate. And, having recognised it as something I had instinctively learned from her, I notice it and recall this pleasure every time I sit in a café and drink a frothy coffee.

Small pleasures. We should try to notice them, to capture them each day.

Tonight I’m attending the JustGiving Fundraiser of the Year Awards at the Roundhouse in London. I shall wear a frou frou frock and will accessorise with a rather fabulous beaded bag which Mum used to use. I’m a finalist in the Creative Fundraiser of the Year category; for the Taking Smock of the Situation Project. You all know of the love that went into each and every stitch, the stories that they unleashed. Perhaps the most unexpected outcome was the outpouring of support I received through it, often from strangers. That support and love is for every one of us who has experience of dementia.

Today I could not be prouder (or more surprised). I feel like a winner just being recognised and shortlisted for the final.

I’ll let you know how it goes – probably on Instagram first of all, so do check me out there if you’re interested.

***

Thank you for reading this.

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.

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 this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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Overwhelm

22 Sep

On 25 September 2021 I posted:

Sewing more name labels on things for Mum today. This is a pillowcase, but there’s also a few more tops and some woolies now the weather is turning.

Mum seemed frail today. I gave her a wee shoulder massage and she was so bony, in a way she never has been.

She was happy to have me there, but was quite lost. I busied myself with tidying her things and sewing name tags and refilling her biscuit tin. And we wrote birthday cards for her sister and step daughter. But I came away with such an overwhelming feeling of sadness. Not for what she’s lost, but for who she is now. She tried so hard to participate but it was too much for her today. It was almost too much for me too.

And now, two years later… I saw Mum recently. A couple of relatively short visits over a weekend… but she slept through most of both of them, and struggled to engage when she did awake.

As I read back at what I wrote two years ago, I have no recollection of how much she was able to participate, or not. And at that time, I had no idea how much further her health would decline, how much more of her capabilities she would lose.

Sometimes it seems impossible to believe that she is still the same person as my Mum; and certainly unbelievable that her body continues to live with so little stimulation, so little engagement with the world. I feel strongly that Mum would hate to be as she is, and in all honesty I hate it too.

I love her, as much as ever, but I hate the situation we are all now locked into.

***

Thank you for reading this.

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.

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 this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.

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