Tag Archives: Taking Smock Of The Situation

A N I M A L S

8 Jan
Embroidering in the morning sunshine

On 16 July 2021 I wrote

It was hot enough at breakfast time to eat outside again. And as today was a hospital visit day again I didn’t need to rush off to work, so filled a quiet hour with some stitches. It’s a lovely way to start a day.

When my brothers and I had left home, mum took up her art more seriously again. She attended pottery classes locally and when she couldn’t get on to the wheel, she started sculpting with her clay. Of course she was drawn to animals (you’ve seen some of her sketches) and before long she was commissioned to create a prize bull from a photo. And her business was born… she created ceramic models of animals, and sent them all over the world. This was before social media, so she traveled to craft fairs and agricultural shows to promote her wares. And she had an old school leaflet, featuring this lovely picture of her with her wee dog, Mouse. (And wearing a fisherman’s smock!)

I share her love of pottery, and have treated myself to some lovely pieces made in Galloway over recent months – as you can see in the carousel of bonus pics below. If you want to own something beautiful, handmade by superb artists you might enjoy @minniwick and @wemakepots.

The A N I M A L S leaflet for mum’s pottery portraits of animals

Eighteen months after I first wrote the words above, in the heart of winter, I am looking out of my window to a cold blustery day, the sky beyond the horizon is dark inky black, promising more rain to come.

And Mum is still around, though a much diminished character to the one we knew so well in July 2021. We cannot know what is in our futures, so it is strange thinking myself back to this time, knowing what I know now. I distinctly remember saying to James around that time that Mum might survive to my birthday (end of August) but not to Christmas. And he responded, that it would not then be to his birthday (just before Christmas). Mum has lived through another two Christmases since that conversation, and as we still cannot look into the future, we do not know if there will be another, or several more. It seems inconceivable, but then I have lived in the foreshadow of her death for so long now.

I visited her yesterday – she was in her bed, as she so often is, but was wide awake and quite alert. She was amused when I told her how our animals are – Puck the naughty black Patterdale terrier, Max the big black labrador with the stinky breath, Brutus the cockerel and only two hens (the others have been taken by badgers, which she remembered) ,, and then I said “And Gordon….” and she giggled, as I added “though he’s not really an animal”. I hadn’t seen her actually giggle for a while, so it was a delight to see.. and she still agrees that he’s a keeper. He certainly is. Mum realised it before anyone else, and despite her limited abilities, she still knows it.

So yesterday was A Good Day. I left her, promising to visit again this morning, at coffee-time.

She was dressed and sitting in her chair this morning – she can no longer dress herself, a combination of her dementia, but also her frailty. She has no power left in her legs. After a couple of incidents when she was sitting on the edge of her bed, and a carer turned around for a minute (probably to get her clothes) and Mum slipped and landed on the floor, Mum is now moved from bed to chair via a hoist. She sits in a large padded chair, which has hidden wheels to wheel Mum to the dining room, or wherever.. .. and her feet don’t touch the ground, so she cannot even try to stand up should she forget she can’t do it any more.

Anyway, Mum was in her chair, dressed, and her hair was looking nice. But she seemed so very far away again. She hardly spoke, but seemed happy to sit and watch me knitting. I blethered a bit, telling her that I’m knitting a jumper for G, and that I also really love embroidery these days and I described the painting of silver birch trees that I found in her sketch book which I am embroidering, slowly, oh so slowly. Mum had little interest, but politely sat there. She also had no interest in looking out the window when I could hardly hear myself speak over the loud drumming of the hailstones outside. Seeing this change in Mum makes me realise how much I value curiosity in people.

So, if we’re categorising, I’d say that today was Not Such A Good Day. But honestly, what is Good or Bad in relation to my dearly loved 91 year old mother? By what criteria do we measure Good and Bad? After all, she is content, and she is treated with respect and dignity, with care and love by the staff. So perhaps today is just Another Day. And tomorrow will be one too.

Mum’s portrait of a much-loved cat, and her version of the nativity, with a cat instead of the usual farmyard animals

***

Finally, if you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started shortly after I realised Mum might have the early stages of dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life as her memories were being thrown around like so many pieces of jigsaw in a big box.

Not in the mood for this? That’s ok. But if you feel like a bit of cooking or baking, perhaps making a delicious Banana Chocolate Nut Cake, then you could check out my recipes here.

Tags: ,

Tide out. Tide in.

15 Dec

On 15 July 2021 I wrote

I don’t even know what day it is any more.

The sun was properly blazing today and high tide was at 4pm. By lunchtime I knew I wasn’t going to be able to focus on work so I booked the afternoon off and headed to the sea.

Sitting on a rock sewing as the tide comes in, then the tide goes out is a really good antidote to the world. As I sat there it all changed. Tide in. Tide out. But it was all the same. And it will all change again overnight. Tide out. Tide in. And it will be the same. But different.

As I was there I got further confirmation of an element of the Escape Plan, so it’s nearly all in place. I sat happily alone on that rock. The tide came in. It went out again. I cried.

Then I took off my dress and immersed myself in the sea.

The day before this, we had visited Fleet Valley Care Home, which was going to be Mum’s new home. I was born less than 100 yards from where Mum was going to spend the rest of her days. Her new postcode would be the same as the postcode where I was born and where I spent my happiest of happy childhoods. It all felt so RIGHT.

Mum was going to be looked after, would be cared for. And, at that moment, it felt as though this wonderful wee community, which helped to give me the best start in life, would step in and help Mum live her best life to the end.

This day felt hopeful, and as tears flowed down my cheeks and mingled with the sea I realised this was the most positive feeling I had felt in months.

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started shortly after realising Mum might have the early stages of dementia. So, there I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life as her memories were being thrown around like so many pieces of jigsaw in a big box.

Not in the mood for this? That’s ok. But if you feel like a bit of cooking or baking (my cheese scones are MIGHTY) then you could check out my recipes here.

Tags: , ,

And I swam

15 Dec

On 15 July 2021 I wrote


I left my shoes and towel on this rock. And swam.

I’ll say no more at this point. But more will come soon. Very soon.

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, and embroidery project I started shortly after I realised Mum might have the early stages of dementia. So, there I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life as her memories were being thrown around like so many pieces of jigsaw in a big box.

Not in the mood for this? That’s ok. But if you feel like a bit of cooking or baking, perhaps making a Christmas cake for people who don’t really like Christmas cake, then you could check out my recipes here.

Tags: , ,

Giving nature a wee nudge

13 Dec

On 14 July 2021 I wrote

It’s beginning to look like I might complete this cosmos flower, eh?

I was thinking about Mum’s garden today, and how very good she is at giving nature a wee nudge here and there to create something beautiful. It feels like she uses the plants as her palette and she paints something glorious.

When we were wee we had a big garden, including a kitchen garden where Mum grew enough vegetables for us to be virtually self sufficient throughout the summer. And one of Mum’s superpowers is getting people (especially kids) to do things… so some of my happiest memories are sitting with Mum at the table by the back door (it would be called on the stoep if we were in South Africa I guess) and shelling peas, extracting broad beans from their fluffy pods, topping and tailing gooseberries … I still love processing the harvest.

I think a lot about Mum.

In the first weeks, months, perhaps year I felt unbearably sad, thinking of how she is, how much she seems to have lost. And I guess, more selfishly, how much we have lost.

But more often these days I think of her with a smile on my face, recalling small details, generally of something recent. For instance how she declared this weekend how much she enjoys bedtime – and the nurse who was with us at the time commented that we should take comfort in the fact that she both knows that she enjoys bedtime and she can tell us so. It seems such a small thing, but he is right – and also, how wonderful to be 91 years old and to be able to do something you enjoy every day!

When I was with Mum I was telling her some of the things I have learned from her over the years, including making the best soup and how to sew. Mum was somewhat sceptical about the sewing, and to be honest when I think about it so am I. I do recall Mum encouraging me to sew, but I’m not sure how much she actually taught me – I learned most of it from books (in the days before the Internet and all those wee how to films on You Tube).

Mum also taught me how to appreciate birds in the garden. In latter years she declared that her garden was her wildlife sanctuary and (perhaps because she could no longer go further afield) she encouraged all wildlife to come to her… she would sit quietly at the big window, and watch all the activity just feet away from her. She had a pair of collared doves who lived just above her house and would come and sit on the back of the garden chair on her patio, before hopping down and eating seeds she had thrown out for them. And then the cheeky wee territorial robin, always at her feet, hopping around after her wherever she was in the garden. A sleek blackbird. A variety of blue tits and coal tits hanging on the bird feeder. Sparrows, so many wee sparrows and dunnocks. And over the years various pigeons, who became more and more demanding that food should be thrown out to them by late morning – if it was not there, they would hop up on to the window ledge and tap at the window till Mum noticed and threw out some food.

Birds would often get into the house – swallows would occasionally swoop in and then circle round and round the chandelier, before perching on one of its arms, trying to work out how exactly to swoop back out again. One morning we found a bird fluttering about inside the wood burning stove – the fire hadn’t been lit for weeks, so the wee bird wasn’t in danger of being burned. But it needed to be rescued, so Mum opened the glass door and picked it up, holding it so gently in her hand before letting it fly off outside. Other birds would fly into the conservatory (well, the door was always open and there were usually nice plants in there for an inquisitive bird)… and they would flap around, trying to get out the windows. Mum always calmly picked these panicked flappy wee things up in a way that I never quite mastered… and she would check them out, identify them (referring to the Big Bird Book if necessary) and then let them go.

These memories seem all just part of ordinary, daily life with Mum.

But she also had a talent for killing birds. It was a talent she only used rarely. One of my earliest memories was of being in the garden and mum picking up an injured bird (I think it was a baby blackbird) from under the hedge. Mum then turned her back to us, and when she turned around again the bird was dead. She had wrung its neck, put it out of its misery. I was in awe. This woman had some superpowers (not just being able to pick up a bird, but also to despatch it!).

And there was also the fable of Mum as a child shooting a sparrow with her bow and arrow. And then roasting it over a wee fire and eating it. This tale always seemed almost too fantastical to be true, but all Mum’s life she has sworn it really happened. Not much meat on a sparrow evidently.

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, and embroidery project I started shortly after I realised Mum might have the early stages of dementia. So, there I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life as her memories were being thrown around like so many pieces of jigsaw in a big box.

Not in the mood for this? That’s ok. But if you feel like a bit of cooking or baking, perhaps making a Christmas cake for people who don’t really like Christmas cake, then you could check out my recipes here.

Tags: , , , ,

So fragile, so precious

9 Dec

On 13 July 2021 I posted

I’m up and at it today!

I’ll head off to see Mum in the hospital again soon… she is almost blind, so can’t read any more. She can’t listen to the radio as it’s an open ward. So, while we’re not there all she has is the noise and bustling activity of the ward and her own jumbling thoughts.

The Escape Plan is coming along, but it needs to be a plan that will keep her safe and that is not as straightforward as it seems. Elderly people can be so frail, so fragile. So precious.

Anyway today you have the beginning of the fifth cosmos petal. And a sketch book so no other bonus pics today.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship with Mum. And with her dementia.

Initially I was desperately sad, full of fear and terrified of what was to come. My biggest fears (have I written this already?) were that she would (i) no longer recognise me and (ii) have a dramatic personality change and become angry and SHOUTY. We have never been a shouty sort of family, and to this day I find myself recoiling if someone properly raises their voice at me.

To cut to the chase, so far, neither of those fears have come to pass, so I consider myself incredibly lucky .. of course I would be luckier if Mum did not need to live in a care home, if she could continue living independently at home as she wished; if she continued to have full use of all her faculties, as they say. But, given that she has dementia, I feel blessed that it has developed as it has. Watching the progression has been profoundly sad at times, but never despairing or frightening. I have never dreaded going to visit Mum, in fact I find myself yearning to be with her.

A few months ago, as Mum’s verbal communication diminished yet further, I sensed that she was struggling with taking phone calls. She often found it difficult to find the words she wanted to use, and could hardly understand what I was saying half the time. The calls seemed to make her more stressed instead of offering any comfort. Her hearing has been iffy for years, but she no longer wears a hearing aid. So I reduced my daily phone calls from every evening before she goes to bed to one or two calls a week, and generally through the day. I was weaning myself off the calls. I don’t know if Mum noticed when I stopped calling altogether, if she remembered that we used to speak on the phone every day, or if she had a sense of how long since she last saw or heard from me?

Anyway, I haven’t called her for so long now. And I miss her voice.

I wonder what she misses? She seems not to miss her easy use of language, her vocabulary, where she could always find the right words. Sometimes these days she can’t find a word, and it doesn’t seem to distress her – she just pauses and then the whole sentence seems to drift away.

She listens when I tell her what a talented artist she is, and that she drew the picture which hangs on her wall – but it’s as though I am telling her about someone she really has no personal interest in. She remains politely faux-curious about it, often responding “Did I really?” but she has no further curiosity about this aspect of her life, this person I am describing to her. Perhaps Past Mum really is someone that she has no personal interest in?

And occasionally I recount her story of when she was a 6 or 7 year old in South Africa… when she was sitting in the dust on one side of a barbed wire fence and drawing the mules which were grazing on the other side – I can still see my drawing in my minds’ eye, and feel the excitement of discovering how the legs joined onto the body.

Last time I told her of this story, she was vaguely interested in it, though she no longer remembered it. But she did acknowledge that if she told me then it must be true!

She did, however, remember that the ring I wear on my finger was her Granbunny’s ring, passed to Mum and then to me. And she remembered that her Great Aunt Janey had a very small gullet (cue: fake coughing from both of us, to demonstrate the smallness of the gullet) and that the same Great Aunt Janey had very large bosoms, and wore long strings of beads … and those strings of beads would, on occasion, slip into a bowl of soup and then swoosh back and forth across aforementioned very large bosoms, creating an arc of soup across Great Aunt Janey’s top. I feel I have known about Great Aunt Janey’s soup encrusted bosoms all my life.

And then, Mum will recall that Great Aunt Janey always said that Mum’s eyes were “green as gooseberries”. And Mum’s eyes light up, those tired gooseberry green eyes.

I can’t rely on these stories always having resonance, but while they do, they are like magic talismans to me. Talismans? Talismen? Why can’t we have taliswomen?

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation. Or you could skip straight to the post when I first mention Mum recalling when she worked out how to draw a horse here. You’ll see some of her sketches of horses too.

Not in the mood for this? That’s ok. But if you feel like a bit of cooking or baking, or even making the best hot tomato chutney you will ever eat, then you could check out my recipes here.

Tags: , , ,

Memoirs and memories

6 Dec

On 12 July 2021

It’s day 42 of this year’s 100 day project. But I’ve just counted and this is only my 23rd post so far. I’m not going to stress about it, but will try to keep carving out wee parcels of time more often so I reach day 100 before the end of the year.

Most days when we visit Mum in hospital we read to her, excerpts from her ‘memoirs’ that she wrote a decade or so ago. This evening as I stitched I listened to Mum’s mother, and Mum’s Uncle Walter reading HIS memoirs which he recorded 40 years ago. Uncle Walter was blind by the time he made these tapes .. he recorded them then sent them to his sister (my grandmother) who was living in South Africa at the time.

The first chapter includes his memory of the outbreak of the first world war. I’m still getting my head round this fact. Uncle Walter was very much part of my childhood… he came to us for Christmas each year, and insisted we all be upstanding for the national anthem before we watched the Queen’s broadcast on telly at 3pm. And this evening I heard his voice again, talking about the first couple of weeks of WW1.

Your bonus pic today is a sketch of a boat by Mum. Enjoy.

Back in Galloway things were moving apace. We had made an appointment to visit Fleet Valley Care Home in two days time. Meanwhile we kept the regime of visiting Mum every day – our visits had to be booked in advance with the hospital, and only one of us at a time. I still consider the negative impact all that time in hospital had on Mum – in unfamiliar surroundings, and no longer able to really make sense of things because of her dementia, her wrist healed, but she faded. I was deep in grief, had been for 6 months by this time, and was operating on some kind of auto pilot.

The only people I was really in touch with were family, my work colleagues (all online, which was possible due to the pandemic with all of us working from home, wherever home may be) and my friend Juliet. And I had become really aware that I had nothing to talk about apart from how Mum was, and how it impacted me. And this was of little interest to anyone else outside of our immediate family circle.

With hindsight it is clear, but even at the time I was aware, how very close to being absolutely broken I was. And this had all happened in a relatively short space of time – from January 2021 through till the July. Could I have done things differently? Could I have looked after myself better? I honestly believe that if you turned the clock back I wouldn’t do much differently. We were feeling our way, we were deep in grief, but also there was a Global Fucking Pandemic on, as I kept saying to anyone who would listen (which we have already established was a very small circle!)

I’ve been dipping into Mum’s memoirs again recently, and had forgotten about this passage from her early life in the Cape, in South Africa:

I had a serious illness when I was about 3 or 4 and remember little about it. I got diphtheria. The Dr was called from Somerset West and I was bundled up and taken down to his cottage hospital where (so I’m told) the matron refused to admit me because of infection, and the Dr had to threaten her with the sack to get me in. I remember vividly that after the crisis was over I was brought home and put into the spare room – the indignity of being put into nappies when I was long ago potty trained! My convalescence was long – there were not antibiotics, and penicillin had not yet been discovered.

And every time I read it, I can’t quite get my head around the fact that ‘penicillin had not yet been discovered’. I have, of course, done the most cursory of research to make sure that this fact is true (one of Mum’s superpowers is to state things with such conviction that you would never question it… only once or twice in my life have I discovered that what she was saying was ENTIRELY bogus). Anyway, I’ve discovered that penicillin was first discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, but I’m guessing hardly anyone knew about it at that point. And it wasn’t until 1942 that it was successfully used to treat a patient… so in the mid 1930s when Mum had diphtheria she would have had to wait about 8 years for a dose of penicillin, and even then it would have been unlikely she, a small girl, would have received it, as later in her memoirs she reminds us that that during the war priority was given to soldiers and war wounded.

Mum returned to Dumfriesshire, Scotland during the War, with her Mum and her two sisters. I will share much more, but this passage describes the second time she was (with hindsight) denied penicillin…

I got appendicitis and was sent to the Moat Brae nursing home where Dr Gordon Hunter took it out – he made a bad job of it as it wouldn’t heal and I have a huge scar on my tummy to this day. (No penicillin for non-combatants in those days – it was a new ‘wonder drug’ and kept for wounded and forces people. I was in the Nursing Home for at least 2 weeks which I really enjoyed and recovering at home for months – in fact I never went back to the Academy to my great relief.

Now, in late 2022 diphtheria has been in the news recently, following an outbreak at a refugee detention centre in the south of England. I’m glad penicillin can now be prescribed, and the outbreak seems to have been curtailed.

Later in life I recall Mum in bed ill with pleurisy. To this day I don’t really know what pleurisy is, but I’m guessing something to do with lungs. I could google it, I know, but that is not the point of this story. I was young, and was aware that she was really very ill. The doctor came to see her, and at some point while she was ill it was established that she was now allergic to penicillin! I have no recollection of what happened, or what symptoms led her to realise she had this allergy.

While Mum was ill, Dad would have continued working, and Rachel Chalmers, our babysitter, came to look after us. I adored Rachel. She was old, or what I thought was old. And her birthday was Christmas day. She lived with Emily, her ‘sister’ at the other end of Fleet Street. Mum described them as women whose loves had been killed during the war so they ended up as spinsters living together. Emily was petite and dainty, Rachel was tall and somehow mannish. I may be wrong, but I only remember one bedroom in their tiny wee house and assume they were not sisters, but partners. I hope so. I want to believe thy had all those years of love, instead of all those years yearning for the love that was taken from them during the War.

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation. It includes, somewhere in there, a link to my fundraiser for Alzheimer Scotland… pause for a minute before you skip over that link, and know that any and every donation will make a difference. We are all much more hard up these days, I know, but if you have a spare pound, please consider gifting it – when enough of you do this, we can make a real difference to people’s lives.

Not in the mood for this? That’s ok. But if you feel like a bit of cooking or baking, including the best Christmas cake for people who don’t like Christmas cake, then you could check out my recipes here.

Tags: , , , ,

Roses after the rain

23 Jul

On 11 July 2021 I posted:

There are so very many shades of pink aren’t there?

The smock comes along slowly… and in the garden the roses smell divine. I’ve actually come away for a couple of days (reflecting that last time I did this, the time was cut short as Mum fell and broke her wrist) and it feels so very good to be home with The Captain for 48 hours. Yesterday we picked up masses of bedding plants from our neighbouring garden centre and filled every planter and trough and tub… the car was like that scene from Frankie and Johnny with the flowers in the van, you know the one? And now the terrace is a mass of colour again.

Your bonus pics today are roses after the rain. They still smell as sweet you know.

I had been away for a couple of days, but I think I was already back in Galloway when I posted this.

Being home had made me realise quite how much I had put my life on hold. How much The Captain (my partner) had too. And I realised that he missed me, though being a West Coast Scot he rarely admitted to it, not before a drink anyway.

I missed the easygoing relaxed life that we had created in the Valley. I mean we never did nothing, we were always doing something, had a project or two on the go, and despaired at how much more there was to do… but it had been so lovely doing stuff together for a couple of days, making our home feel more home like. And as I type this a year on, I am fully aware that this year we have not bothered to fill our window boxes and troughs with flowers.. perhaps because the pattern now is that we are away pretty much every other weekend, or more often, down in Galloway.

On this same evening I was knitting whilst messaging my friend Juliet on WhatsApp. I had made a mistake and spent about an hour un-knitting back to the place where I had made the mistake. And then I said to her: “I have finally unknitted to the mistake. And it may not be the mistake I thought it was.” (I can tell you now that it wasn’t, it was all absolutely fine, no mistake at all). She replied, “Ha! That’s not like you at all!” (which we say to one another when we admit to overthinking something).

And it’s only now, with hindsight, that I see what she did. And what I did. Juliet is amazing – I wish you all had a Juliet in your lives.

Anyway I hope your lives are all going well, and that if you need to unknit anything in your life you stop and think and check if there really is a mistake there at all. … and even if there is, does it matter? This last year I have learned how there are far fewer things that really matter in life than you imagined. And often they are not the things you might have thought mattered.

Remember to tell the people you love how you feel about them. And don’t just casually drop that love word into their lap. Make it special to them, tell them what it is about them that you love. They may never thank you personally for it, but it will stay in their heart and sustain them.

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation. It includes, somewhere in there, a link to my fundraiser for Alzheimer Scotland… pause for a minute before you skip over that link, and know that any and every donation will make a difference. We are all much more hard up these days, I know, but if you have a spare pound, please consider gifting it – when enough of you do this, we can make a real difference to people’s lives.

Not in the mood for this? That’s ok. But if you feel like a bit of cooking or baking, or (swoon) the most incredible blackcurrant ripple ice cream you will ever eat, then you could check out my recipes here.

Tags: , , , ,

I see the sea!

21 Jul

On 8 July 2021 I posted:

The slow pace and the sort of mindless/mindful focus I need for this project is good for me. I could just pick it up and do a single stitch, and that would be enough. But actually it never is. I always get drawn in, do more.

Some of my happiest childhood memories are of going down to the beach in the summer holidays. I’d put my swimming cozzie on under my frock, for speed of getting into the sea. Then mum would bundle us all into the back of the car, with our towels and buckets and spades and chittering bites.

As a child, isn’t the road to the beach the most exciting journey? … we all knew the EXACT spot where we’d first see a glimpse of the sea, shimmering beyond the fields, and we would all squeal, “I see the sea! I see the sea!”

In Mum’s memoirs she’s written of doing exactly the same with her sisters when they were all kids, being driven to the Cape in South Africa in their Dad’s car. Evidently Grandpa used to beep the horn to accompany their chorus of “I see the sea”. Until the time the horn stuck. And there was a constant beeeeeep for the three miles to the coast.

Your bonus pics today are of me at the beach. A few years apart.

In other news, we are putting in place Mum’s Escape Plan to get her out of hospital. More on that soon, once the plan is less fluid.

And just over a year on from writing that post, I have again been getting excited about seeing the sea. (this was drafted Monday 18 July 2022) We’ve had seriously hot weather the last few days and more tomorrow. We’re not as hot here in Galloway as some other parts of the UK are, but I took this morning off work and we were on the beach with the dogs by 8.30am. It was blissful, and being there just relaxing in the sunshine, in the gentle breeze, watching the tide going out, the tide coming in, has been just the tonic I needed. We spent all of yesterday morning there too, reading Sunday papers, embroidering, paddling about in the water, walking out to the island at low tide, and making friends with people who have discovered this magical place and were wild camping.

Looking back to last year though… the day before I wrote the post above, my brother and I had both gone together through to Stranraer to the hospital, to meet the discharge team, or whoever they were. I know we had struggled to establish how decisions were made about Mum being discharged, and who made those decisions.. and what criteria were used to make those decisions. We were pretty confident that as her principle carers (prior to being admitted to hospital) it was probably important that whoever was involved in making those decisions included us in the discussions… But I think if we had not pushed for our involvement, there would have been a decision made about Mum and we would have found out about it afterwards.

The team was trying to put together a care package, so Mum could return home. The package would comprise of 4 visits per day, to help Mum get to the toilet, and to get her dressed in the morning, and ready for bed at night. The rest of the time she would be on her own.

I still feel physically ill when I think of how this would have impacted Mum. Mum, if she was helped out of a chair, could manage to get herself about – her legs still worked. But she had broken her wrist, and for some years now had been used to pushing herself up off a chair by holding onto the arms of the chair with her hands, and using the strength in her arms to leverage herself up. She could not do this with a broken wrist bone which was not yet full healed. But she had dementia. She would forget this, and would try.

I could go on, listing all the many reasons this care package was not going to work for Mum – but for two reasons we never had to consider it further. Firstly, there are insufficient carers in the region and they could not cover all 4 visits every day. Until they could put all 4 in place, Mum could not leave the hospital. But secondly, we had already decided that a care home was really the only way we could see Mum being able to live with dignity, and this is what we wanted. We were considering paying for this privately, and had already looked at some options.

During the meeting, the social worker asked if we would consider Fleet Valley, even as a short term option until something closer to where we live became available.

Fleet Valley is the care home in the town that Mum has made home since the early 60s. We all lived a few doors along from Fleet Valley in the 60s, 70s, 80s, until Mum and Dad sold up and moved to the other end of the town after us kids had left home. I think initially we had been so focused on what was easiest and most convenient for us, while also giving Mum what we thought would be best for her, that we hadn’t seen what was right in front of us. Of course Fleet Valley was a sensible option. Apart from anything else, she would be cared for by people who knew something of who she used to be, and that (to this day) feels important to me. While so much of Mum’s identity has eroded, I like to know there are people with her every day who knew her when she was Provost of the Town, perhaps know that the pavement out to Port Macadam is known (by some) as Mrs Wolffe’s Motorway, remember her fighting to save the local school from being closed… this is part of who Mum is.

And, Fleet Valley, we were told would have a room available soon, in the next week or two. Would we be interested? Things were about to happen, and they would happen quite quickly.

Until then, one of us made the journey to Stranraer and back every day.

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation.

Not in the mood for this? That’s ok. But if you feel like a bit of cooking or baking, or even making the best hot tomato chutney you will ever eat, then you could check out my recipes here.

Tags: , , ,

The operating theatre

10 Jul

On 6 July 2021

Another petal is nearly complete, and I definitely feel like I’m improving my embroidery skills. I still need an eye test and new glasses though.

Mum is still in hospital, having rehabilitation to get her mobility back after falling and breaking her wrist. It’s a slow process, given her frailty and also her difficulty with short term memory which makes it tricky for her to learn new ways to do things.

Two bonus pics today. The first is a bowl of pears poached in Madeira… somehow there’s always a bottle of Madeira at the back of the cupboard and it’s the perfect match for pears. And the resulting ‘pear juice’ is the best treat to take in to hospital for a rehabilitating mother.

The 2nd bonus pic is of my maternal grandmother’s childhood home. Gran went back there during the war, with her daughters, including Mum. They lived in the Gardener’s Cottage when the main house was handed over to the Norwegians who turned it into a temporary hospital. Mum tells a story of the day she jumped into the water tank, and nearly sliced her foot in two on a broken jam jar. She was carried, foot held high, up to the house where it was stitched back together in this operating theatre.

I’ve also added a picture of the X-Ray in the Servant’s Hall, as it is described in Gran’s old photo album.

Looking at what else was going on in my life, I see that this was the day I had the interview for that internal job I went for. I had hoped to hear back from them by the end of the day, but heard nothing, so by the evening was fairly confident that I wouldn’t get it. My manager (who would continue to be my manager) was goin on leave at the end of the following day, and had assured me that they wanted to make a decision before she went on leave. Having put myself through the application and then the interview process, I had come to realise how much I disliked aspects of my current role and wanted the change. I also knew that my head was all over the place, and the practicality of it all meant that if I got the job, they would have to recruit someone to take my role, which I’m not sure was desirable for anyone – our team had been under-resourced for ages and we were all looking forward to a full team.

By the end of the following day I still hadn’t heard back from the interview. I sent my manager a message wishing her a good holiday before she left .. and no mention was made of the outcome of the interview. I should have asked, and in different times I absolutely would have, but I was so broken, so low.. I had lost so much of myself these last few months.

My brother and I went down to the sea that afternoon. When I look now at the pictures I took, the sea and the coast looks glorious. We look like husks.

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation.

Tags: , , ,

The big pink cosmos flower

7 Jul

On 27 June 2021 I wrote:

My big pink cosmos flower is beginning to look a wee bit more like it might be recognisable as a flower. Squeee!

In the background is another bunch of flowers from the garden. Mum loves her garden and makes creating a wonderful space, full of interest and colour all year round, seem so easy. She just has a great instinct, matched with some serious knowledge.

Today I give you two bonus pics, both hand drawn.

The first one is a pencil sketch in the back of her school poetry book, so probably drawn by her as a teenager.

The second is by her youngest grandchild. Thank you Camila, what a kind and talented child you are!

I was struggling at work during this period. I was probably struggling fullstop.

But I was lucky with work, they had brought in good flexible working policies for people with caring responsibilities in January 2021, so I could use 20% of my working hours as caring time – this had helped in the first few months of the year, when Mum was still living at home, semi-independently. But now that so much of our time was taken up travelling to and from hospital, this wasn’t sufficient. I decided to take two days off a week, so on those days I could devote myself to Mum, and also not worry about how wrung out I was on my return from the hospital. Because invariably I was wrung out.

I was constantly anxious about the future. It felt certain that Mum’s condition would deteriorate (at a rate unknown) and then inevitably would die. It also felt certain that Mum would never ‘be herself’ again, that none of us could look forward to a better time with her, a more enjoyable day, or even just an easily relaxed day when we were happily companionable in one another’s company. Every time I thought about how her life had changed, how our relationship had changed I would well up with tears. And if ever I allowed my brain to fast forward to a time when Mum would not know who I am, the tears flowed freely down my cheeks. So, I learned to live in the moment with Mum, to accept her each day for who she was that day, never comparing her to a previous version of herself, nor to an imagined future Mum. It was surprisingly easy once I got my head round it, and free-ed me up to really be with her each time we were together. And, you know what? Every single time I have seen her, there has been so much still to love about her. And today, over a year later, she has little in the way of actual conversation these days, but we laughed together this morning, between her peaceful snoozes.

***

If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation.

Tags: , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →