December 2023

Since we got back from Scotland last Monday it is all go here….I am not sure if I am creating Christmas or if it is just creating itself. I think the latter. I have simplified, but I am still far too busy.

There are some issues that always arise at Christmas – the car, washer, fridge, oven stop working – well this year we have the ‘condemed’ gas fire (only because we cannot get a new part - the ceramic tray beneath the coals) and our heating boiler requires more than a service and so the manufacturer will have to come out and rectify a fault (though we can still run the boiler, thankfully and have heating in the radiators). The Christmas lurgy has also struck and we are two men down (Master Freddie and baby Chocolate both have a digestive bug – I won’t mention anymore details on that issue!). Oh, and did I mention mum has been ultra busy in the complaints department and upsetting anyone who enters her flat! She keeps trying to ring me on the TV remote and change channels with the phone but says it is not her that is doing anything wrong it is the TV and phone that need replacing and we cannot persuade her otherwise.

On the good side I have managed to get icing on the top of the cake ready for the little ones to decorate. I also, with great relief, put my cards in the post box on Thursday (4 days before the last posting day – must be a record for me as I am often waiting for the ink/paint to dry when I make my own. The lights which DH put up in November were ready and waiting to be switched on in December and the Christmas pyjamas for the little ones, ordered in late October, are all ready in their respective Christmas Eve boxes.

This weekend we are childminding – not sure whether it will be 2 or 3 but only 2 will sleep over tonight. I have plenty lined up to keep them busy – Christmas plates to paint, table place cards to make, our Christmas tree and the cake to decorate. Today we are going to Nostell Priory to see the Pantomime themed decorations in the house and, weather permitting, have a brisk walk around the grounds to spot the woodland fairies.

This coming week we have our hair appointment, a dental appointment and then lots of dropping in on friends to exchange gifts, have a festive drink and a natter. Lovely.

Every year our church holds a coffee morning at the end of November to raise money for the charity Crisis who help the homeless over the Christmas period. Each year I make some Christmas gifts to sell on the gift stall and this year my idea was to find some empty craft boxes and fill them with various items for someone to give as a present or use themselves.

The craft boxes are quite inexpensive and I used old Christmas cards to decorate the top. I made up six boxes in all – once I got into the swing of things and made a prototype I could have made more but time as usual was the big constraint and I had to photograph all these in a rush before I put them on the stall so I apologise for the poor photo quality.

Inside each box the contents were carefully concealed under pretty leaves of tissue paper to add to the surprise. Three of the boxes contained toiletries or beauty items that could be given as a gift.

My daughter donated these brand new No7 skin care products and I added a face cloth.

She also donated some rather gorgeous French make up that came with an equally gorgeous cotton printed scarf.

I had a number of unused shampoo and conditioner bars that were given to me as gifts but far too many for me to use so I wrapped some of them in pretty sheets of tissue and added another face cloth in this box.

The other three boxes consisted of homemade cards and gift wrap accessories – gift tags, ribbon or twine and a little pack of matching embellishments made up from bits and pieces in my craft stash.

I made three designs of cards in differing colour schemes and chose the accessories to suit – ‘Winter Wonderland’ was my favourite in cool white and silver.

‘Happy Christmas’ was the more natural pack…..

…and ‘Holly Jolly Christmas’ the traditional red and gold.

Whilst searching online for the craft boxes I came across these lovely Advent boxes that contain 24 boxes to fill yourself. All the boxes are from the Tiny Box Company www.tinyboxcompany.co.uk - (Just to be clear I am not being paid to mention their website or endorsing their products but if you are interested then follow the link they have some lovely packaging).

I decided my two daughters would love them and so bought them one each and then had great fun finding things to put in them. Everything had a Christmas theme and some items I made and some I bought.

The grandchildren have loved waiting to see what surprise is in each one as much as my daughters – I included Christmas balloons, string lights, baubles, cake toppers, a mini pot pouri box of pine cones, cinnamon sticks and dried oranges and even some home made gift tags and thank you cards.

Of course, as many of my long time readers will know, since my two girls were little, each year they have found an angel in the top of their stocking and this year is no exception only instead of in their stocking she is the surprise on day 19.

So if I don’t get back here again before Christmas…

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas and may all your dreams and wishes come true. xx

I have been quite neglectful of my little space here recently….time has just evaded me.

As much as I have wanted to write, and the intention is always there, somehow I just never found that moment….and then when I did WordPress decided it was not going to let me preview my posts. But all good now – I solved the problem before they did.

A lot has happened since my last entry and thankfully I do manage to keep my little journal going that sits by my bed and is a useful memory bank and reminder of why I am not finding the time to write here very often.

I have no doubt that followers, readers and fellow bloggers will be eager for an update just as I am when someone disappears off the scene for any length of time – and I thank those of you who have been in contact, checking I am still here and OK.

And now for the news.

Mum is home now and settled back into her little apartment. It was touch and go whether she would leave the care home or not but she decided to give it a try and in fact we found out during the arrangements that due to the possibility of requiring council funding in the future she had no option but to go back home (*see more details on this below).

She came home on 18th September and from then ’till now she has taken this long to settle in (well as much as she ever will). I do not like to speak ill of people but the social worker appointed was next to useless. One day out of the blue in August I had a phone call from her to say she was going to carry out an assessment on mum and could I be there. Well given I live 90 miles away and she arranged this assessment for 9am one morning, no I couldn’t and my sister was away on holiday too so she couldn’t attend either.

The social worker chose not to rearrange for a time convenient for us and saw mum on her own. Once again she, as the previous social worker, assessed mum as having capacity (which I always question as she cannot retain or undersatnd a lot of information). She assessed her as being able to go back home but NOT requiring 24 hour care even though she had 24 hour care in the care home and required help to get to the toilet in the night. I believe this assessment was more to do with the fact that the council will not provide or pay for 24 hour care outside of a care home if mum wasn’t able to pay her carers privately.

*The shocking side of all this, which mum’s social worker just ‘happened’ to mention and I hope anyone in our situation will take note, is that if an elderly person is assessed as not requiring 24 hour care and they themselves decide they would prefer to be in a care home which is of course 24 hour care and then they become eligible for financial help provided by the local council (once the magic figure of £23,500 of savings has been reached) then the council are not oblidged to step in and pay for your 24 hour care if you were assessed as not needing it. This is very worrying for anyone who does not have enough savings to pay their way privately.

Once the social worker had done the assessment she promptly went on annual leave for 2 weeks without putting in place a leaving date for mum and this cost us another £2,000 in care home fees for a further two weeks delay. It would have cost us over £4,000 as the care home work on a 4 week notice period but the manager decided she would waiver the 2 weeks after mum left because of the failing of the social worker to act promptly.

When the social worker came back from holiday we set a date for mum to leave (Monday 18th September) and she said she would make all the arrangements for a home care package and transport to be in place for that day – which was the following week. Luckily, I rang social services on the Thursday (four days before my mum was due to go home) for an update as I had not heard anything and found that the social worker was not only on holiday again but had done nothing towards getting my mum home. It was now urgent that something was done but social services would not supply another social worker to sort this out so I had to do all the arranging with the care agency and book transport myself with the help of the admin clerk in the social services department who stepped in and was a great help and could only apologise for the social workers lack of arrangements.

Mum now has a care agency going in four times every day as required by the social workers assessment. Her first visit is at 9am when the carer goes in to get her up, washed and dressed and on her last visit at 6pm she is put to bed – which is quite early for mum but the only time the carers had available. She has to eat her lunch around 11.30 and her evening meal around 3.30 when she has the other two visits from the carers during the day. After the last visit she spends 14 hours on her own with no one to help her until the carer appears at 9am again. During this time she cannot get a drink other than water at her bedside, if she is cold she cannot put her heating on -she can just about get herself out of bed to the commode beside her. If she falls or has an emergency she can use the call button she has around her neck. In the care home of course she had a buzzer to summon help to go to the toilet or get a drink made. It is all very sad and this is happening to elderly people up and down the country.

My sister continues to visit her on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday and cooks ready meals for her feezer, does all the washing and cleans throughout the flat. She works full time and has to do her work in the evening on the days she visits in the week. I ring mum every night and visit as often as we can to help my sister and ease mum’s boredom but she is definitely getting worse with her memory and her anxiety levels become so high when my sister is away that she often won’t get up and says she feels ‘off colour’ so the carers will leave her in bed as she feels safer in bed when my sister is away.

Mum pays for her care privately at the moment as she has savings above the £23,500 magic threshold – it costs her almost £800 for the week. Yes you read this correctly! Plus she has all her bills and food on top and the service charge for the apartment and council tax. The care home in comparison was £1090 a week but it was all inclusive and it was one of the cheaper places around Yarm – most of them are about £1,300 to £1,500 per week and this is only if you do not require specialist nursing care or have dementia.

If the local council do have to help with the fees their contribution is of course capped, so if you choose a more expensive place then relatives are expected to put in the additional money called a topup.

My advice is not only to start saving now for your old age but to keep fit and healthy so you can look after yourself as long as possible!!

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Our life of course is not all about mum and we have had little snippets of time to take our new baby Chocolate to the park once or twice and we had a free admission day to the National Trust property at Dunham Massey.

During the school holidays we all went to see a local Halloween pantomime called the Haunted House put on by a group of amateur dramatics in the next village. It was exceptionally good – though my back was exceptionally bad and has been recently with a lot of travelling up and down to North Yorkshire to see mum. After the panto we all came back to my house for a buffet tea and the grandchildren had spent the morning making (what has now become a bit of a tradition here) place name cards – in the theme of Halloween.

Granny was a pumpkin.

We had another invasion two weeks later when everyone decended upon us again to celebrate Sweetie’s 5th birthday. She is quite taken with Hello Kitty and my SIL manage to find some stationery from the Hello Kitty era when her girls were young. We made chocolate buns with Hello Kitty toppers and of course more named place cards.

On a cold Saturday evening in November we had a little adventure with master Freddie and baby Chocolate (who slept through the whole event) in Cliffe Woods at Clayton West a village near Denby Dale (of the pie fame and not too far away from us). The event was named ‘Light up the Woods’ – a firework free zone – a trail through woodland that was alight with a wonderful display of recycled rubbish made by local groups and school children.

Since then I have been busy crafting and other such delights and all being well I should be able to give you a glimpse of my ‘efforts’ in the next few days.

Hoping you are all well – I can see most of you are happily blogging away and I am slowly catching up and you may even get a comment or two.

Until next time ……xx