dear diary ~ that frustrated feeling…

“I wanted to figure out why I was so busy, but I couldn’t find the time to do it.” 
― Todd Stocker

It must be a defect in my personality but I rarely do what I set out to do.

I believe mentioned in my last post that I would be going outside to wash my downstairs windows at the back of the house and then tidy the shed.

So how did I end up cleaning out the freezer?

Well, I had to wait by the phone for the so-called ‘callback’ from social services. With my hearing impairment, I have to have the phone on speaker phone to hear people and so I don’t want to be out in public when they call.

So I hung around the kitchen and found things to clean during the morning….

The drawers in the freezer are looking good though, all neat and tidy. I am always cross with myself if I find things that should have been eaten and have been dwindling in there. There were two very old (Dec 2024), small, cheap 8″ pizzas in there which I often get in case I need a quick meal for one of the grandchildren. They looked very dried up so I had to bin them as the life of a bread item is not very long. I also found a couple of wraps of a similar age and we had them with some curry that night in place of a chapati, and they were OK.

Most of the items in my freezer are standby products, a pizza, a bag of chips, garden peas, broad beans and edame beans (all the vegetables we neither grow or buy and cook fresh). I also keep it stocked with bread, grated cheese, stewed apple or plums, fresh herbs and a few bits and pieces like fish fingers for the grandchildren. At the moment we need to make more nutloaf – it is on the list.

Thankfully, nothing else was wasted or too old to use and I have made a note of anything that needs using up quickly.

….the morning went, but still no callback.

I then took the phone out to the greenhouse and began sowing more seeds…..

…..the afternoon disappered, but still no callback.

So no call back that day as promised and the shed and windows remain on my to do list.

It was Tuesday by the time I managed to speak with someone. It is now becoming urgent that my mum’s case is resolved as her capital will soon be down to zero even though the legal disregarded capital is £14,250. I was told that mum can no longer use the care agency she has now. It was arranged by a social worker back in 2023 when mum came out of the care home after her fall. Because mum’s capital back then was well above the disregard limit she was self-funding but the social worker failed to mention that the local authority would not be able to pay this care agency rate once my mum was no longer a self-funder.

So I have been told that she will have to sign up with a new agency (local authority approved on cost alone). The local authority have a capped rate of £23.60 an hour maximum, mum’s current homecare provider is £36….so a big gap and not one that we could fill by putting money towards to allow mum to keep the same carers. I told the social worker she will have to be the one to tell my mum as she will be devastated, she is used to all the carers with the current agency and as you may know, elderly people do not like change.

I am not looking forward to the meeting with the social worker at mum’s next Thursday when she will deliver the bad news.

Mum has not been good this week – her rodent ulcer on her leg is bleeding badly and no one, not the doctors, nurses, skin viability nurse, paramedics or me and my sister have been able to persuade her to go into hospital in order for them to deal with it and stop the bleeding, even though she has been told the consequences…which is she could eventually bleed to the point of needing a transfusion. She is happily sitting there at the moment with blood running out of her leg wound, quite unconcerned about it and repetetively asking if the carer will still be taking her across the road to the cafe for her chip butty and brownie!

She has used her pendant alarm call twice in the last 24 hours and this results in an ambulance being sent out each time and then she has a little chat and sends them away as they cannot take her to hospital against her wishes, even her doctor can’t. She has now been prescribed some tablets by the visiting doctor to try and halt the bleeding, but she won’t get the prescription until Monday as they have to be actioned on the surgery computer system. No longer do doctors carry a prescription pad with them it seems.

The amount of blood is quite substantial according to her main carer who has been marvellous and coped as best she can washing the bedding in the bath (mum has no washer in the flat) and cleaning up the blood stained carpets. I learned this morning that she had removed all her dressings again last night and was found in bed this morning with an open wound. The district nurses have been called out again to redress it. They will not be pleased as we all know she will remove it when no-one is around.

I am beginning to think she likes all the attention of the doctors, nurses and paramedics fussing around her, especially when myself or my sister are not able to visit (my sister is away again at the moment). Mum knows that she is not able to summon a doctor or the District Nurses instantly but has learned that with the press of her call button she will get a visit from the paramedics as they are obliged to go and check on her. It appears that if there is no-one else to visit mum she will make do with a visit from the paramedics and they will have a nice little chat with her between the carers visits. We are all helping her play this game by responding to her, but we can’t ignore her either and she knows now that no-one can force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do or stop her from being such a nuisance.

There really is no answer to all this. I just have to keep moving forward.

When I can, I keep escaping into the greenhouse and sowing a few more seeds. I have at last got the courgette seeds started. I log everything in my note book and I was quite surprised when I looked at the date on the courgette packet – they should be sown by…2022, however they did grow last year successfully so fingers crossed.

The African lilies that I set last year in a tub have some nice green shoots, they died right back over winter despite covering them with a plastic cloche. I thought I might have lost them.  There were no flowers last year, but I set them late – I am hoping they might bloom this year.  I had some beautiful clumps at the cottage and I am looking forward to have a nice display down here.

The tulips I planted last autumn with more subdued colours are looking really nice too and not too tall either, so they haven’t been beaten down by the wind and rain.

The honesty is in full flower now and looking pretty, it self seeds like foxgloves and moves around the garden each year at the back of the borders.

And this is the little pot of daffodils still flowering well, that I bought a while ago reduced from £12.99 to £6.

This is my buddleia alternifolia it normally hides my washing pole quite nicely but, the framework was so out of shape and the only answer was a severe hard prune.

Each of these stems has a little bud or two and I am crossing my fingers that, when it recovers from the shock, it will grow back. Of course, I will have to sacrifice any flowers this year.

I had ended up with a few unused courgettes in the fridge this week. One of them, DH used in the curry, and the others I used for the stuffed courgette bake. It turned out well and gave us 2 meals. I will add it to the drop down menu tab above. The mushroom soup recipe is there for those readers asking for it.

The play we went to see last Saturday night was amusing and the actors did well. The main actor never noticeably stumbled over his lines and he had a lot of lines to deliver. In the interval, we had a much needed cup of tea and a biscuit. Wine was available too, which is a nice touch.

In and amongst all the drama with mum and the subsequent phone calls, I am trying to keep up with the housework and laundry. To keep the place tidy and everything in its place I am spending an hour each day just organising and cleaning any one of a number of areas where things tend to collect, like the top of the fridge in the laundry room and my desk in the office.

This Persephone pamphlet came in the post yesterday with a free new bookmark. I always enjoy reading it as they review a selection of their books and the authors.

I am also really enjoying the book I got from our library on the history of our little township – but what hardship many of the residents endured, we should all think ourselves lucky that we are alive today and in easier times, because many of the people who lived before us, our ancestors, thankfully survived, against all odds, long enough to have children, who also survived.

The mortality rate for infants has been exceptionally high at times and from entries recorded in the Middle Ages around 1297, during the reign of Edward I, it is documented in the Parish records that the people living in our little township would walk to Almondbury and back to attend church, a round trip of 14 miles, taking their new born infants, often in the middle of winter, to be baptised….and then back again a few days later to be buried.

I am looking forward to going in the garden this weekend, weather permitting. It has been an awful week for doing any washing, so I need to catch up.

We signed our LPA’s yesterday at the solicitors and checked through our updated wills, which we will return to sign when the amendments are completed. That will be another of our financial tasks off the list. Next on the list is renewing our passports.  All these official items and form filling take time, but I  feel we are getting somewhere at last, and once done, we will only have to review them occasionally.

So that has been my week, I feel exhausted and the thought that next week will be another battle with mum exhausts me further.

And now I am going back out in the garden, it soothes my nerves and calms me down. DH is raking the moss out of the final patch of lawn and I have some perennials to move (which should have been done earlier if it wasn’t for this continuous rain). The pretty pale pink aqualegia I moved last week has recovered and looking as if it will flower.

Thank you for all your comments about the library and the hedging. I apologise if I have not answered you all. I do have the Libby app – I will check on Country Living. I will miss having a paper magazine though as I often tear out pages with interesting ideas for my notebook. The hedging project I can see will be delayed until all this uncertainty about mum is resolved with social services.

Have a lovely weekend.

Thank you for dropping by, back soon x

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