Category: dEAr diary

a chat about my day

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dear diary ~ all’s well

Many thanks for all your lovely comments I only wish I had a bit more time to read and comment as I used to on the blogs I read. Everytime I think I might have some spare time looming on the horizon it is like that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – never quite within my grasp!

Over the last few weeks I thought I would never be able to say all’s well again. I had such a bad virus that kept coming and going and I had almost learnt to live with it. I have also had to have a few medical tests and scans recently (nothing to do with the virus) which had to be cancelled due to illness and rearranged but at last I have worked through all of them and I am relieved just to have a week without any appointments.

Last Monday we had a drive up to north Yorkshire to visit my mum. She has been a little bit less demanding over the last two weeks…in fact she is quite calm at the moment for which I am really grateful and it has helped reduce both my stress levels and blood pressure.

We spent about four hours with her and I can’t think of anything that she complained about, which is unusual. The TV remote was working, the carers have been on time for the evening call at 6 o’clock to get her to bed and they have all been the carers she likes…so no grumbles which made a pleasant change and a much more pleasant visit.

Last week she was most thoroughly told off by the senior wound control person who went to see her and discuss the options for the rodent ulcer on her leg which is ‘festering’ badly and not far from becoming gangrenous. She has been turning away the district nurses who dress her leg and won’t let them put the necessary dressings on and if they do get them on she removes them but to be fair the sticky edging to the plasters do make her skin sore. The nurses want to put compression stockings on as a way to help the healing process but mum would not hear of it – she says she would not be able to get her shoes on and they would look so awful when she goes out. Bearing in mind she wears trousers all the time now and can only go out when my sister takes her to the local park in the wheelchair or occasionally to a nearby Costa or Pizza Express for a pizza no-one can fully understand her reluctance to wearing the stockings. Anyway she was told by the wound control person in no uncertain terms that if she did not comply with the treatment then she would eventually be taken into hospital, probably with sepsis, and could lose her leg or not even come out again – it was up to her now.

Harsh I know…. but it has done the trick and she didn’t mention her leg at all yesterday – normally she would say how sore it was and throbbing and how awful all the nurses are and that they have no idea what they are doing and it is them making it worse, not the fact that she leaves the wound exposed and allows it to get more infected. So now it is all dressed and wrapped and she hasn’t complained once. Result.

I don’t know about where you all live but here we have barely had a day without rain at some point and going in the garden to do some jobs has not been possible. I have managed one day so far and had a bit of a tidy up. Surprisingly, even with the bad weather it is full of colour with all the tulips, forget-me-nots and wallflowers and the amalancier is looking magnificent in full bloom.

On Easter Sunday we had all the family to tea and held an Easter egg hunt in our back garden…. in the cold although… the children didn’t seem to notice the wind chill whilst busy trying to find the hidden eggs. Master Freddie made these cute Easter baskets for us all.

On Easter Monday we went with all four grandchildren and their mums and dads to RHS Harlow Carr – even their garden was suffering from the cold and wet with many areas of the garden waterlogged.

Whilst the weather has been so bad I have continued with the major decluttering project – some things are hard to reduce in number – these little china mugs for instance – I did get rid of a couple and kept the ones in the photo. I have made a few sales already on Ebay – listing items can take such a long time… taking photos and then giving a detailed description and I find selecting the right postage a real pain with all the different parcel sizes and weights, but well worth it when our unwanted items go off to good homes and I get a little bit of money for our holiday fund.

I had to make a menu plan at the begining of this week that would leave us with an empty fridge by the time we leave for Scotland, so I had to plan carefully and only shop for the absolute necessary items to make a meal. The pantry is well stocked – perhaps a little too well stocked, but I had to buy some fresh fruit and veg to get us through the week. Over the last few weeks my stomach has not been good since the virus and the meals have been just a little of what I thought I could manage…..and that was mainly a baked potato – not the most healthy diet in the world – but thankfully all is back to normal again so curries, nut loaf and pasta bakes are back on the menu.

I am reading three quite different books at the moment, but the one I can’t put down is the Persephone book ‘The Village’ by Margharita Laski – I bought it with my Amazon voucher from Christmas and I really have to stop myself reading late into the night. The book about the Brontes was gift and How to Live is from my local library full of good advice, I just wish I could have read it years ago as the latest research on health and chronic disease is quite enlightening. I do try and implement gradual changes to my diet but isn’t the healthy choice often the more expensive. Being vegetarian we have always eaten plenty of fruit and veg but it is far more expensive now than ever.

Whilst in Sainsbury’s I picked up the May issue of Gardener’s World which has the 2 for 1 card. I was astonished to find it is now £9.50 a copy and the free packets of seeds that come with this issue has been reduced down to four, though they are all seeds that I will grow – Zinnias have become a firm favourite and I love the jewel colours in late summer.

My next project when I return from Scotland will be helping my daughter arrange the Christening for baby Chocolate – how difficult can that be? Well let me tell you it can be difficult. We live in a parish of 4 churches, but only one vicar. One church has no heating, since the boiler broke over 3 years ago, we did have Master Freddie’s Christening there one November and yes it was cold – we took a hot water bottle for my mum. Another church (the preferred one by the village hall that we would like to hire) had a Christening last week and part of the ceiling fell down and we are waiting to know if it will be repaired, the other two have services much earlier at 9.30am (rather than the 11.15am of the others) which is quite early for those relatives that live a long way off and also for preparing the Christening tea beforehand. The dates offered are near the end of May or end of October – neither being that good for us – May is a bit too soon to organise and October a bit too late in the year….but we were told there is a possibility of a date in August and that would be ideal.

Is it just me or is life getting far more complicated and complex than ever before?

Hope you have a brilliant weekend with plenty of sunshine and welcome to my new readers – it would be good if you leave a comment without completing the form if you could put your name at the end of your comment so other readers know who you are.

Bye for now x

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dear diary ~ the best laid plans…

……always seem to go wrong for us!

By last Sunday morning my daughter had caught the virus from her husband and the baby – it was a toss up which one of them felt worse. We had Master Freddie for the day to give them chance to rest and he was as good as gold. It was far too cold / wet / damp to go anywhere so we settled down with the box of Lego and then played a game of Peppa Pig Monopoly (still the favourite with all the grandchildren). By mid afternoon I knew I had succumbed to the virus but managed to keep going until tea-time and then had to go and lay my head down leaving DH to cook his tea and take him home. I really haven’t felt well since.

By the next day on Monday tea-time DH was also unwell, he thought he wasn’t doing too badly but has taken a turn for the worse today. This really is a vicious virus, the baby is still unwell and it is over a week now and his temperature keeps dipping and diving reaching 40C at times and then normal again at others. Of course there is no doctor available because he hasn’t got a rash or had a fit! When my daughters were babies we always received a visit from our doctor if they were poorly. How times have changed.

This is the first day I have been able to have a shower – it was a challenge as I am so light headed all the time and find it difficult to stand for any length of time without passing out – both my daughter and son-in-law are having the same problem so I think it is just the nature of the virus. I have also got stabbing pains in my bones and muscles and feel generally quite weak. All we can do is sit it out.

It was going to be a busy week for us trying to do some of the household tasks like cleaning the oven (which is now long overdue). All our plans for the jobs around the house have had to be postponed and all the appointments cancelled. I just hope we improve by next week. Mum is frantically calling me a lot asking how I am, but don’t be deceived, this is not really to know if I am feeling better but if I am feeling better enough to go up and see her this Sunday because my sister is away again this weekend.

I would have to be in hospital for her to consider I might not feel well enough to visit…..and at the moment I really don’t and this pressure is not helping as I cannot relax. DH took a call the other night after she left a series of voicemail messages sobbing that my sister had told her we were never going to go and visit her ever again. What my sister actually said was that we may not get up anytime soon.

Last time I couldn’t go to visit when my sister was away she had a series of tamtrums everyday with the carers – sobbing, screaming shouting and throwing things – she is a most difficult patient and wears them all out….it is exasperating. I live in fear that one day the care agency will say they are not prepared to take all this abuse anymore and we will have to find another agency. I am sure other people out there are going through a similar experience with an elderly parent but I feel so alone in all this as there is no one to ask for advice on how to deal with all this.

Anyway enough of my problems – I know life will look better when I feel better and a good moan can be very cathartic – just ignore me!

I hope everyone is managing to keep well and maybe there is a hint of good weather coming along as I know everyone will be itching to go out into their gardens – me as well. It really has been a long gloomy winter.

Take care x

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dear diary :: getting back into the swing

Home again and back to normal daily life and all that entails. Already there have been ups and downs in the couple of weeks we have been at home. Mum has had another urine infection – they make her say and do the oddest things as these infections disturb the brain. It is generally known now that a lot of the ‘dementia’ in elderly people is actually a lack of fluids but even though they are told to drink more they don’t as it means more trips to the toilet. For mum this is not easy as her mobility is so reduced she is on the verge now of not being able to walk at all.

We had a trip up to see her last Sunday after having Little L and Sweetie to stay on Friday and Saturday night. As they left we jumped in the car to drive the 90 miles to see mum – she hates being alone on a Sunday and my sister was away for a rest (though you can hardly call it being on her own as the carers go in 4 times a day).

I have started a course of acupuncture to see if it might help my ear problems and the peripheral nerve damage in my legs and feet from the ruptured disc I had over a year ago. I have never minded needles and quite frankly the doctors are at a loss so I will have a go at anything.

Last Monday we woke to a phone call from my younger daughter who, if you have been following my blog may remember, we helped to buy a new used car – the one that had a burst tyre on the motorway 14 minutes later. Perry’s in Rotherham have been very good and sent a cheque to her for the replacement tyre and we are hopeful we might recover some of the money for the recovery charge we paid to get her off the motorway. Anyway back to the phone call….”mum, the car is at the garage again”, “oh no” I said, ” what has happened this time?”…….. “a taxi driver came out of his driveway on the school run and straight into me and then drove away – I am waiting for the police”.

Daughter, Little L and Sweetie were shocked but OK, my daughter is now having to have physio because of bad whiplash.. the taxi driver eventually came back to the scene after his neighbour, who had seen the crash, rang him to tell him to come back. He has had a similar accident before coming out of his drive. Obviously he doesn’t have great timing and luckily daughter was not going fast. The car is not quite a write off but badly crumpled. Such
a shame.

On Wednesday it was such a beautiful sunny day we used our free NT coupon and went to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire for the day. It must be over 30 years since we last visited and there is now a huge car park which was almost full and a new visitor centre. When we previously went you parked almost outside the door in the car park that had all of about 10 cars in it and the cafe was in one of the old kitchens. It was very interesting as the volunteers had time to chat and tell us quite a bit of the history and odd quirks of the place.

The little book on the left was found hidden behind one of the wooden panels in the dining room. There are never as many little artefacts of this nature in a place of this date as you find in later Georgian and Victorian properties so this was quite unusual.

We had arranged to go to help my elder daughter this week, who lives nearby, with her young baby but unfortunately baby Chocolate was unwell with a virus and a high temperature at the same time as her husband was also ill in bed. We could only help wash dishes and do a few household chores and nurse the baby to give mum a break as no way was he being put down in his cot – all he really wanted was to snuggle up with his mum. He is no better today so we will have Master Freddie here tomorrow to help out. I did have plans but of course I can put them aside.

I seem to have got quite a few unfinished decluttering jobs on the go now as it has been quite a broken up week one way or another. I am still wading through old paperwork and managed to scan on to the computer a lot of documents that I feel need keeping. I know you should not keep things ‘just in case’ but we have been saved a few times by hanging on to things. When we had the flood we could produce every receipt and got a good price for our contents, when there was all the endowment policy scandal we could produce plenty of evidence and more recently when the Skipton B.S. failed to transfer our ISA savings we could tell them the day and almost exact time that we had dropped the transfer request forms (that they claim they had not received) into the branch because I had kept the dental card machine receipt which showed the date and time we paid and the appointment was prior to us dropping in the forms. With each of these issues there has been a lot of money at stake that we might have missed out on if I wasn’t quite as diligent at keeping old paperwork.

It is so easy to keep a record digitally and I can then archive all these documents onto a memory stick. I hope I will never need to look back at them but you never know!

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dear diary ~ homeward bound

We ached too much yesterday morning to go out into the cottage garden even though it was our last chance to clear up, weed, prune or do any other urgent jobs – we had to take the decision to just let it be. 

Instead, as the sun was shining, we went for a short drive over to Castle Kennedy Gardens to have a wander on their snowdrop trail.  I can’t tell you how wonderful it was…fresh air, sunshine and nature – it lifts the spirits like nothing else…forget retail therapy (I am not a shopper anyway) being outdoors after such a wet and dismal winter is like a good dose of medicine or perhaps I should say vitamins.

And now we are homeward bound after a lovely restful week.  I feel ready to take on the house again when we get home; I have even been planning in my head what I will be decluttering next.  There are many items that I just do not use taking up valuable shelf space and I know that I will probably not get around to using them this year either.  Many of them are quite inexpensive; some of them will have been given to me in the first place, so cost me nothing.  My idea is to empty a cupboard completely of its contents and then only put back the things that I actually use or have used in the last 6 months and then review whatever is left.

We stay in the Premier Inn overnight at Carlisle to break the journey home and rest my back but we will no longer be having the breakfasts there.  We only have Continental breakfast anyway – I know how much people love their full cooked breakfast but they are not for me I have never had a liking for fried food.  I usually choose yoghurt with a spoonful of the fresh berries on top and then have 2 slices of toast and a cup of tea and it costs £7.95, DH has museli and a croissant and a coffee for the same price.  You can, for the price, eat all you want but I can’t eat more so I feel it is all a bit wasted on us and over time the breakfast menu is becoming more limited – decaff tea is no longer available, the yoghurts on offer are now down to two types 0% fat greek yoghurt or strawberry, both by Yeo Valley but in smaller tubs than you buy at the supermarket.  Last week they had taken off the brown wholemeal bread and replaced it with what looks like the 50:50 type and it is that awful squidgy steam baked Mother’s Pride type (goodness knows why any mother would be proud of that).  I expect I could complain to the powers that be that run the Premier Inn chain but I doubt they would be the least bit bothered…their priorities these days, like many other businesses, is a nice big profit over customer care and welfare. I presume if they keep limiting the menu bit by bit they can save a fortune over time.

So all in all it is not worth us paying out to have breakfast there.  Instead we are going to take a bowl of our museli and buy a pint of milk and a yoghurt from the garage just down the road. I can cut up a Kiwi or banana to have with it.  We can eat that in the hotel room and make a drink – I will take my own decaff teabag and then later when we are back on the road we will stop at Booths in Penrith or a Costa who both sell a better slice of toast with nice thick wholemeal slices.

Well must go now I have a little packing and cleaning to do before we go. I like to leave the caravan tidy and clean for the next visit and we switch off our fridge because there are often numerous power cuts here (one lasted 3 days) so it has to be emptied and wiped out each time. We have just about managed to eat down all the food we brought and bought – one of the drawbacks to staying in the hotel overnight is trying to keep any chilled foods cool so it is useful for us to finish off any cheese or butter by the end of our visit.

I thought whilst I am talking about the Premier Inn you might like to hear a funny story.

We always stay in the same Premier Inn just off Junction 42 on the M6 at Carlisle (you may know it), and we have over the course of the last 18 months had various different rooms some better than others but never the same one twice – we have had rooms with a very smelly shower curtain, hand soap with a faulty pump, lamps that don’t work, very large spiders, no heating and no toilet tissue but have never experienced the room with no window until our previous stay last December. It was a winter’s evening so when we opened the door to room 101 we were not surprised to see the curtains already closed. However, the first thing I always do when we go into a room is open the window. Imagine my surprise when I pulled back the curtain to be greeted by a blank wall!

Well, I actually fibbed a bit here because when I looked up there was a window but it was way up at the top of the wall near the ceiling, just a long slit really and impossible to see out of or reach to open. This is the window from the outside of the building just above the reception area below.

DH reckoned it had perhaps been a store room at one time and then converted. It felt too claustrophobic for me so we had to ask to be moved. ‘People either love it or hate it’ reception said – you can guess which camp I am in.

Have a great day x