For some reason, in recent years I’ve always felt it more appropriate to celebrate Mum (who brought me into this world all those years ago) rather than me on my birthday. And this is exactly what I did on Tuesday. Her favourite carer sang happy birthday to me, while Mum smiled and tried to join in. It was almost unbearably sad, to see how much Mum was trying to join in, to understand… she knew this was a happy thing, but was a bit lost in it. And I couldn’t help but think that this may well be the last time she’s here for my birthday.
But before all that, we received an exciting email! It was confirmation from the solicitor that our prospective buyers were offering us what we wanted for our house. Is it the best birthday present I have ever received? Probably not, but it’s about as good as it gets when you’ve been round the sun as many times as I have now.
So, the hope now is that we will have moved to Galloway by the end of November. There are many things that need to go right in order for that to happen, not least that the buyer needs to sell his house.. but I am assured that many people are focused on being ‘in by Christmas’ so perhaps it will really happen. I do hope so.
***
I’ve had a wee break from posting here regularly. I didn’t mean to take a break, but sometimes life happens. And the main thing that happened was Covid. After 3 and a half years of evading the beast, we both got it, and pretty badly. I’m back now, and hoping to post weekly updates. But don’t hold me to that… there are a few other things I’m going to need to prioritise in the coming weeks and months.
***
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.
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.
Embroidering Mum’s fisherman’s smock all started as an act of self care. And now it’s up for an award!
Cutting to the chase, I have a small favour to ask. Please click here and VOTE FOR ME. Or read the rest of this piece and then vote!
At the beginning of 2021 we had just come through the first 9 months of Covid, with strict lockdowns and social isolation. We were heading for another lockdown and I was heading to live in Galloway, 100 miles from home, for several weeks or months (who knew at the outset? Our ability to plan things in any meaningful way was one of the casualties of Covid.. )
I had read research that proved that people who regularly indulged in some crafting activity, something creative, were less likely to break.. and so I joined a global online ‘project’ called #MakeDontBreak. Daily prompts, and sharing on social media helped create a community, and convinced me that a daily habit of stitching or sewing, of making or creating would be key to my wellbeing during this period of isolation.
Of course I hadn’t, at the outset, factored in that within days I would notice that Mum’s behaviour was slightly out of kilter, and that she had the early stages of dementia.
Or that she would gift me her old fisherman’s smock that was her ‘uniform’ for years when she used to work with clay every day, making ceramic models and selling them to people who wanted three dimensional portraits of their animals.
That fisherman’s smock seems to have taken on a life of its own. I have slowly, so slowly, embroidered designs on to the canvas, and with each stitch there is love, but also there are stories. Somehow, the gentle act of stitching has helped me to cope with the world around me, as it changed so dramatically.
I never anticipated that this act of self care, would lead to this blog, and now has been shortlisted as one of three finalists in the JustGiving Creative Fundraiser of the Year Award.
I should have told you sooner, but things have been a bit much this last month or so, more of which another time.
Anyway – the smock popped up in media stories all over the country, like THIS.
I’ve messed this up, but if you read this and have time before 12 noon (Edinburgh time) on Friday 25 August please please click through here and VOTE FOR ME. The winner is decided on a public vote, to be announced at the end of September.
If you have already voted, a thousand million thank yous, you are all such stars.
***
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 as I let everything go to 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.
Finally, if this has moved you, I would really appreciate it if you made a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, forever thank you.
I started the next design today. It’s not the one I’d been planning, but sometimes you just have to go with what feels right at the time. And it’s time for a wild strawberry.
It’s not really… we picked the last of them a few weeks ago. This is the season for brambles. And joy of joys, for Victoria plums. The edges of our garden are wilder and more unkempt than ever this year, and I’ve harvested more than 3lbs of brambles from our wild edges and hedges. Five years ago mum gave us a plum tree. We’ve only ever had 2 plums from it before. We’ve harvested 26lbs so far this year! That makes a lot of crumble!
Anyway… most people have completed their 100 days for 2021. I’ve loved seeing so much creativity, and such a supportive community. And I’m more than happy to be continuing mine at my own pace.
Wild Scottish Strawberries are the most lovely treat for a small child. There is something about their teeny tininess that makes them perfect for small hands. I remember picking them as a child, probably eating more than were put in the bowl, but that is part of the point isn’t it?
This design was created by my nephew Max, who is now a grown up, but as a child he also loved to pick those wild strawberries. When you first start picking wild strawberries you think there aren’t going to be many at all, certainly not enough to make A Thing. And then slowly as you wander around the edges of the garden, lifting up the big green leaves to find more teeny bright red fruit, you realise that if you hadn’t eaten so many at the start, there would be plenty to macerate with a wee bit of vanilla sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar, to then add to a bowl of lush Greek yoghurt or spoon over vanilla ice cream.
Anyway, you are in for a treat with this embroidery design, it is one of my favourites.
It’s odd writing this blog post nearly two years on from when I wrote that first opener, about the wild strawberry design.
I see that back then I had just had a lovely visit with Mum – I reported that she was in good fettle, which is good enough for me.
But more than that, I had told her that she was my favourite Mum (perhaps for the first time?). She looked at me, paused, and then said ‘I am your only Mum’.
I told her that there were lots of other Mums in the word, and I was so happy and lucky that she is mine. She liked this. I then told her about my friend, J, who did not have a good relationship with her Mum. Mum looked puzzled at this, looked down at my hand and stroked it with hers. It was such a beautifully tender moment.
Mum no longer always had the words to express herself, but she could let me know that she cared, that she loved me. And that was enough. It’s still enough.
***
Can I ask you a small favour? Could you please click here and vote for me, Lois Wolffe. The Smock has been shortlisted for an Award and it would mean the world to me if you voted for it.
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 as I let everything go to 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.
Finally, if this has moved you, I would really appreciate it if you made 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.
Cape logo. To celebrate Mum’s life in South Africa.
When I was young, South Africa still had apartheid. Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned. Steve Biko died from injuries sustained while in police custody. South African goods were boycotted by many in this country. But Mum always looked out for the Cape logo, and we had apples from the Cape in our fruit bowl. At Christmas a whole wooden crate of South African peaches would arrive by freight from Gran and Grandpa in South Africa. Mum’s childhood was on a South African fruit farm, and she wanted to continue to support those farms. I remember a sense of unease, but ate those delicious apples and peaches.
Bonus pictures today are of Mum in the 1950s at her flat in London, on South Kinnerton Street. She lived there when she worked for Aquascutum, working up the designs for their chief designer. One day she was invited out to lunch (at Claridge’s I think) by an elderly distant cousin. Mum wore a gorgeous tweed coat. But the cousin insisted that one does not wear tweed for lunch in London and made Mum change into a tatty old black coat. Different times, eh?
The other annual gift we used to receive each year, just before Christmas I think, was a bunch of flowers. As I think about it now, it seems such a miracle – this long cardboard box would arrive, just the perfect length to be used as a box for storing knitting needles once it was emptied of the contents.
And the contents were stems of something that resembled long asparagus. Mum would carefully remove each stem from the box, check it over, cut off the bottom half inch and then pop it into a big crystal glass vase. A couple of days later the asparagus had transformed into creamy white blossoms of chincherinchees, which we always pronounced chinkericheese. Back in the early 70s they were such an exotic to have in the house, especially around Christmas, when mostly all you could get was a poinsettia in a pot and some sprigs of holly.
I’ve started moving some stuff to Mum’s house, in anticipation of us moving there later this year … I thought I had been clever and had only moved things I wouldn’t need in the meantime – but now that I want to take a picture of the old chincerinchees box still full of knitting needles, I realise it’s 100 miles away so you’ll have to wait for that picture. I have already regretted taking the jeely pan down there, and also the crate of Jamieson’s Spindrift Shetland wool, which is just the perfect thing for knitting colourwork, and is essential in my 100 Days Project for 2023.
My idea for this year’s 100 Days Project was to play with colour in knitting, to get more confident in choosing my own colours and making designs. The first third of the 100 days has involved making a cowl out of what I call Carrick Shore Colours – though once I got half way around I realised that I was about to run out of the paler toned background colours (Dewdrop and Granite, if you’re interested) so the second half uses the darker tones of Blue Lovat and Wren for the background shades – this turns out to be a happy solution to running out of the pale colours – it gave me the opportunity to play with different colourways, and also the cowl now has a light and a dark half, which might work sartorially?
I am on the last day of that first cowl, and realise I need to quickly decide if I am going to make another cowl, or Other Things. I have a feeling it might be Other Things. We’ll see. After all, it can be Other Things for a while and then another cowl for the final month or so.
***
Can I ask you a small favour? Could you please click here and vote for me, Lois Wolffe. The Smock has been shortlisted for an Award and it would mean the world to me if you voted for it.
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 as I let everything go to 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.
Finally, if this has moved you, I would really appreciate it if you made 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.
Today I discover that being precise and neat is harder than it looks. So this will forever be an impression of the CAPE logo.
In other fruit news, the Victoria Plum tree which mum gave us 5 years ago has this year decided to bear fruit. And oh so much fruit. I picked 1lbs a couple of days ago and 5lbs today but the tree doesn’t look like I’ve picked anything at all.
On the phone I reminded mum when she and her big sister Jen were children they rode the wee ponies through their orchard and would put their hands up and just pick the plums off the trees. And then they would see how far they could spit the stones. Mum liked to think of me now spitting plum stones.
Earlier this year when we had decided that we would put the house on the market and move to Galloway, I had sort of assumed that we would have moved or be in the process of moving over the summer, and certainly gone by the time any fruit are ready to harvest. In my head I had written off a 2023 fruit harvest.
Things don’t always go to plan do they? For reasons various it looks like we may still be here in the early Autumn when the fruit is ripe – we’ll certainly harvest blackcurrants again this year, and the red and white currants that made such teeny tiny quantities of jelly last year (and stupidly I haven’t opened those jars yet, believing them to be so rare and precious that they should be kept for another day).
The apple trees have hardly any fruit this year, which isn’t surprising after two heavily laden years (also they really need pruning). Those trees were gifted to us from Mum, soon after I moved in here – they are a Cambusnethan pippin and a Galloway Pippin, and they produce good, slightly tart apples which work as eaters or cookers. The Victoria plum similarly is taking a year off this year – I wonder if there was something about the time they blossomed this year? There wasn’t a frost to kill off the fruit, but perhaps the pollinators weren’t about?
In amongst this barren orchard are the two pear trees, which haven’t produced much fruit in recent years… but this year, oh my! So many pears! I have a lovely recipe for Spiced Pears, which involves slow cooking some pears in a mixture of sugar and spices and vinegar and wine (if I remember correctly) until the fruit is entirely infused with the flavours and the liquid has boiled down to a syrup – they are equally good served with cold meat, or drizzled on top of the best vanilla ice cream. I still have the remnants of a jar made several years ago (possibly pre pandemic) and honestly, those goo-ey soft fruit are ambrosial nectar.
Mum slept through my whole visit the other day, for a couple of hours, until the very end when she opened her eyes and smiled her big gappy smile at me. But her eyes twinkled and she knew it was me, her favourite daughter. Her eyes used to be green as gooseberries (according to her Aunt Janey). Now, they are slightly rheumy, and the green has faded to a soft grey-ish green – a bit like gooseberries do if you overcook them.
***
Can I ask you a small favour? Could you please click here and vote for me, Lois Wolffe. The Smock has been shortlisted for an Award and it would mean the world to me if you voted for it.
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 as I let everything go to 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.
Finally, if this has moved you, I would really appreciate it if you made 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.
This is meant to be a quick wee emblem.. but I’m beginning to think it might take a while.
Mum has saved stickers from fresh fruit over the years, and stuck them to the back of the door under the stairs. There are actually no stairs in Mum’s house, but the larder was under the stairs in my childhood home, so the larder is still called UnderThe Stairs.
Under The Stairs in our childhood home was a magical place for me.
There was a rough stone floor, and thick shelves, which in memory were made of stone, but perhaps they were concrete blocks? I’ll never know. And everything under there was cool to the touch.
When I call it Under The Stairs you might be imagining a small space with a low ceiling. While one part of this space was just like that, most of it was a fairly a long thin room with long deep shelves on either side, leading to a tiny wee window at the far end. That window was covered in mesh, allowing a free flow of air into the space.
For some reason this was where we were going to go if we got the three minute warning of a nuclear bomb… I’m not now convinced it would have protected us from any fallout, with that old mesh over the window. How odd to think that one of the things I was definitely aware of as a child was where we would hide if there was an imminent nuclear bomb; and even odder that I don’t recall there being any anxiety about this knowledge (or the fact that our safe place clearly wasn’t that safe).
Anyway, what things were kept in there?
It was effectively an overflow fridge, though never quite as cold as the fridge. We didn’t keep the actual Must Be Kept Cold things in there (so no cartons of milk, or butter and generally no fresh meat or fish). But always, always leftovers, dishes of tasty leftovers, ready to be re-purposed into some other meal. Mince made into cottage pie, vegetables added to a soup, roast lamb diced up and mixed with gravy and some curry powder to make ‘curry’. The 70s were another galaxy weren’t they?
Tins had their own shelf. There was a rack of vegetables just by the door as you went in, and frequently there would be a brace of pheasants hanging, by their necks from a hook just to the right as you went in, with a newspaper on the floor underneath to catch any drips of blood. There was a pile of tupperware-esque containers and their not-quite-fitting lids; there was the huge jeely pan, brought out once or twice a year to make marmalade and then again before Hogmanay to make the most enormous vat of Pea Soup from split peas, to feed the revellers at some unholy hour of the morning when it became clear that no-one was leaving any time soon, but we all needed something else to keep us going through till breakfast time. There was the fish kettle, brought out only once or twice in my memory to poach a whole salmon; candles, torches, a tilly lamp and an old railway signal lamp in case of black outs, which were a regular feature of my early childhood (Mum, of course, made what must have been a nuisance and a frustration to her, into a fun game for us kids). There were cans and cans of dog and cat food, each one more stinky than the other. And there were spaces for us to hide in if we were playing hide and seek.
No wonder I wasn’t afraid of a nuclear bomb – hiding in here for a while was just fine.
I was living in London when Mum and Dad moved house and I didn’t visit them till some weeks after they had moved. But from the first moment I stepped into Mum’s kitchen in that unfamiliar house and opened the door to Under The Stairs, I knew EXACTLY where everything lived. The trays would be stacked beside that chair next to the fridge, the jars of jams and chutneys on the shelf to the left Under the Stairs, and the candles up on that shelf on the right. Bottles of wine would probably be on the rack on the floor on the right, with the old square tin full of shoe cleaning stuff sitting on top of it. Everything had its place, and when Mum became increasingly blind, and then unable to remember where things were, somehow her muscle memory compensated and helped her to put her hand on just what she was looking for, keeping her independent for far longer than perhaps was wise.
***
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. The Smock Project is up for an Award, and it would make my heart sing if you took a moment to click through here to vote for it. It will take you but seconds to do it.
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.
I have some fun news to share with you all! (followed by a small favour to ask!)
Taking Smock of the Situation, my project to embroider and embellish Mum’s old fisherman’s smock has been shortlisted into the final three for the Creative Fundraiser of the Year Award!
It now goes out to a public vote, and I would be forever grateful if you could take a moment and click through and vote for The Smock (well, for me, Loïs Wolffe).
This all started as a bit of a whim, as something to focus my mind while it was trying to hold on to my stuff, as well as Mum Stuff, when her mind was getting increasingly confused with dementia. It was never really intended as a fundraiser, but it felt like the right thing to do, to try to help Alzheimer Scotland make sure no-one has to live with dementia alone. So, it feels like I am an absolute winner already just being shortlisted as a Creative Fundraiser of the Year.
So please, could you click here and vote for me? If you have a spare few pennies this month, I would be forever grateful if you could also make a small donation. Also, next time you see someone struggling in a shop, a café, or on the bus, wherever… think dementia, think they might not always have been like this, and with a bit of time and reassurance, maybe a gentle word from you, they might get through the day more easily.
Thank you, forever thank you.
***
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.
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.
Next element to be embroidered on the Smock of Love is a cape logo. I’ll get started on it this evening.
Your bonus is a close up of the label on a suitcase that went back and forth to South Africa a few times.
My Grandfather’s suitcase
As I wrote this, a new colleague had joined our team at work, in the role that I had applied for and failed to get.
I was still angry about how it had all been handled so very badly, and also, I guess, angry with myself for not having been “good enough” to be offered the job. My friend, J, reassured me that I was collateral damage in a shit situation, and I see that more clearly now. I also now adore my colleague who had joined us a week before, so all has turned out ok I guess.
The contents of that suitcase are still un-read, though I have dipped into it with my brother just to see what it contains – mostly letters to my Gran, from a variety of people, but mostly from her brother, Walter. I love how she had the closest of relationships with her brother, and as an echo down the generations I have a similarly close relationship now with my elder brother.
***
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.
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.
Did you think my wee swallows were finished in that last post? Well no! The one on the left needed a few wee extra stitches on his head… but now they are done and you see them in all their glory!
Tomorrow I will soak off the plastic that I use to keep me on track with the designs so we’ll see what it really looks like. We’ll also see if the embroidery threads are colour fast. Or not. Eek!
I haven’t told you how Mum describes my arrival in her memoirs have I? I was born at home and was 2 weeks late. Mum makes it clear that she was Not Happy that she’d had to feed the nurse who had been staying with us doing nothing while we awaited my arrival. Then the nurse had to go to another job, so off she went pretty much straight after I appeared.
I think I’ve written recently about being late. Yes here, if you’re interested.
I got some good news the other day, which I’m still smiling about. I’ll share it with you soon, but for now all you need know is that it took me entirely by surprise and it makes me see myself in quite a different light.
My main focus at the moment is this year’s #100DaysProject, which is a knitting project that I am designing and knitting day by day. It’s soothing in the way that knitting just is. And it’s also quite fun to see what it looks like – it feels a bit like gardening. When you plant something you know, in theory, what will appear, what will grow. But when it actually happens it feels like such a miracle. The same is true of my knitting project this year – it feels like an absolute miracle that I am creating this thing, that it starts as 8 individual balls of wool, nice wool, but just 8 balls, each containing 105m of delicious Shetland wool. And now it’s A Thing, full of pattern and coziness. And it will be wear-able. Eventually.
Anyway, off I go to do some more knitting. Or designing.
***
Mostly these days on this blog I write about my relationship with Mum as she developed dementia. Gentle meditative stitching her old Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me when I nearly broke, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches, instead of her deteriorating brain.
If you want to read more about this, 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.
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.
I was going to see Mum today, but visiting is cancelled at the home this weekend (yes, Covid related), so we spoke on the phone instead, and she was sad not to be having coffee and cake with me and my brothers. I was sad too, to be honest.
But, as James reminded me, I have long history of not seeing Mum on my birthday. On my 10th birthday Mum was in hospital. I think it was for her back, or possibly pleurisy? Anyway, she remained in hospital and I made my own cake. The following day she discharged herself, so she could hand over a petition to a Government Minister on behalf of the A75 Action Group (which campaigned to improve the road, and therefore the communities along it). I was a petulant child, and never let Mum forget how she discharged herself from hospital the day AFTER my birthday. I haven’t forgotten, but I forgave her many years ago.
I miss her today as much as I did when I was 10.
In other news… LOOK AT THE SWALLOWS ON THE WASHING LINE!
I read this little slice of my life from nearly 2 years ago now and I realise how little things change. And how everything is different.
When I was still at school, I remember being miffed that one of my brothers had a summer holiday birthday, and the other a birthday just before Christmas… but me? My birthday was generally usually in that first week back at school. Oh the injustice! The more I think about it, the more I sense that as a child I thought the world was against me.
Being the youngest of three I was ALWAYS trying to catch up – either physically by toddling after my brothers, or in some other skill, like playing the piano (which I quickly realised was not something I would ever catch up on, so I gave up altogether despite still being forced to go to piano lessons).
One of my refrains was “Wait for me, wait for meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” which I would wail from the back of the pack of Wolffe cubs.
I have an early recollection of then saying to Mum, one day, “Life’s not fair”.
Mum glanced over at this sulky child of hers and concurred, “Yes, Life’s not fair.”. In my memory she also said “get used to it” but perhaps I made that bit up.
These days I shout the loudest when I sense an injustice.
Because as was confirmed to four year old Loïs, “Life’s not fair”
The three Wolffe Cubs dressed as the Three Blind Mice. And our cousin Caroline as the Farmer’s Wife
Having said all that, I have thought for years that it was totally fair of Mum to discharge herself the day after my birthday. It was so entirely Mum, to believe that her world should not revolve around her children, and also to know that we would have other birthdays that she would be there for. But Dumfries and Galloway is a different place because of her campaigns for the A75 to bypass the towns it went through. And if she had not discharged herself that day, to meet the Minister for Transport, who knows? Perhaps it wouldn’t have happened.
This newspaper clipping suggests that it was my 14th birthday, and not my 10th!
The last birthday I had with Mum was in 2019, and actually I’m not sure exactly how we celebrated that year… but we weren’t to know what was coming, so I’m so glad that whatever we did, we enjoyed it for what it was, and not because it would be the last. We seem to have got so conscious of ‘lasts’ in recent years, and I don’t think it has enhanced any situation.
***
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.
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.
Shewolfinthevalley 