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dear diary ~ mellow autumn, slow and easy…

I am gradually easing myself into this new season – a time to slow down and reflect.

For me it is a new season in my life too, no escaping anymore up to our little cottage in Scotland and spending hours working in the garden, but rejuvinating at the same time. It is just a year since we said goodbye and I am just starting to get a hold on my new normal, implementing a few changes here and there.

You might think as I did that we would have more time on our hands to do other things, but sadly…. no, this hasn’t turned out to be the case. With both daughters moving house one after the other we have been providing help with unpacking, sorting, decorating, gardening and childcare and my dear old mum has certainly entered a new chapter in her life.

Her short term memory is increasingly short term and living with the constant phone calls she makes to me through the day asking me the same question over and over ‘Do I know when the carers are coming in’ is frustrating but I need to keep patient and remember how frightening this condition is for her and how important routine and stability are to manage this condition. I know it will only get worse so I have to get better at handling the situation for my own sanity.

The carers are finding it hard to cope with her too so I know it is not just me feeling frustrated. Being almost 100 and still able to reside in your own home is such an achievement but also such a challenge. My family all agree that going inton a care home might not be that far away but at present she has almost 4 hours of undivided attention from the carers during the day – there is no way she will get that in a care home. During her brief spell in one 2 years ago she was lucky to have 5 minutes attendance from the overworked carers looking after her and she went downhill through lack of contact. I know from comments I receive that I am not alone in this situation and it helps to know that, it really does.

As any change can be difficult I am going slowly with the season and trying a bit of self care, carving out some time to do something just for me each week and alongside this I have a new determination to resolve some of the ongoing projects that are in limbo and constantly on my mind as no matter which way I turn I see unfinished jobs all around me.

I decided to sort my rather long project list into something more manageable, breaking down the more lengthy and involved projects into attainable tasks. I have now grouped these into short lists of three and I aim to complete the three over a week – Kanban style.

This week my 3 projects are:

  • Book a fully refundable hotel room for Christmas at the Premier Inn close to mum’s apartment.
  • Return a roller blind to John Lewis and buy a wider one, also buy a second pillowslip and a tester pot of the Little Greene paint.
  • Finally sew a casing on the edge of the greenhouse shading net so I can get it off the mending pile and pack it away ready for next year. (This task should have been done at the start of summer, but like most of my tasks got deferred).

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At the same time I am gearing up a notch to prepare myself for the next big event looming on the horizon ocassionally flicking through pages of magazines finding inspiration for making a few Christmas crafts and hoping at the same time that I will find the time to do them. I have found from experience that starting early is key to avoiding the almost unavoidable pressure that can be generated these days – gone are the days when Christmas could be organised the week or two before; I have learnt that even the simplest of Christmasses require a lot of planning to make them seem…..well simple.

You can’t help but notice that the Christmas magazines are plentiful and already on display in every supermarket and one or two have leapt into my shopping trolley lately, but they are a treat (call it part of my self care) as I decided at the beginning of the year not to renew the Country Living magazine I subscribed to. The décor featured currently is not really to my taste or the style of house we live in and the recipes, although the photography is really lovely and makes the food very tempting, they are often quite complicated or require some unusual ingredients or are decidedly not very vegetarian so I was getting very few ideas from them.

Instead, I switched to buying the seasonal issues of Country Living – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Christmas as quite often the features in these are pulled from past issues. I do tend to keep these seasonal issues to refer to each year and actually find them more inspiring than their monthly magazines – although I did sign up for the offer of 5 issues for £5 in August as £1 an issue is too good to miss and it will include the December issue.

A lovely little magazine for easy recipes and ideas for using up leftovers is the free Tesco magazine which my daughter passes on to me. Ironically, all these magazines are piling up now waiting to be read.

To add to my growing little stash two welcome packages arrived this week – I ordered the final issue of 91 magazine a while ago; I do admire these people who manage to self publish their own individual magazines and sadly, although I didn’t buy many copies, I will miss this one.

The other package was the 6 monthly little pamphlet produced by Persephone books that keeps you updated with details of any new titles and excerpts from some of their books in print, it came with the little red Victory postcard too, presumably a wartime slogan.

I have a passion for the Persephone books – I am working my way through many of them and there is something very appealing about their plain smooth grey covers opening up to those glorious prints hidden away inside.

I am patiently waiting for Christmas now when I know DH will ‘surprise’ me with a couple of new Persephone books to read…… meanwhile, I content myself with rereading one or two old favourites from my bookshelves. 

The one by my bedside that I currently fall asleep with after a chapter or two is The Fortnight in September by R C Sherriff,  a day by day account of a family’s two week holiday repeated every year in Bognor – a very typical British seaside holiday and very reminiscent of our own family holiday in Scarborough.  It has a nice leisurely pace very conducive for sleep and a glimpse into the ordinariness of their everyday lives.

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I had a bit of an unintentional spending session last Saturday – I say session, rather than spree, as I spent more than I thought but not more than was affordable.  After going to Mount Grace Priory we called in nearby Northallerton and I took Little L and Sweetie to The Works to treat them to one or two craft items to keep them busy in half term.

I chose the pack of spooky balloons to decorate along with the make your own pumpkin paper lantern and then let the girls have a free choice of something they would like to do – and what a mistake that was…I should have known better – whilst the display had some lovely laser cut wooden lanterns to paint or strings of bunting to colour….what did they choose….the most gruesome and hideous plaster figurines to paint that came at a gruesome price!

Let that be a lesson to myself not to take them with me to buy Halloween crafts.

I consoled myself with a few cute little Christmas bits that I have no doubt I or the children will create something Christmassy with.

Taking a short cut through the Yorkshire Trading Company I noticed this twiggy wreath at a very reasonable price. All I need now is the time to develop all the ideas I have floating around in my head.

But it won’t be today as DH and I will be out and about taking garden rubbish from my daughter’s garden to the tip and then another go at that bathroom.

Take care everyone, back soon xx

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dear diary ~ a little light relief

We stumbled through last week again with the usual shopping, and a few household jobs, which included a little light dusting and hoovering just to keep on top of them. We even managed to make some tomato soup and a couple of reasonably healthy meals along the way as well as a bit of gardening…but not much. The zinnias along with the cosmos are providing some cheery autumn colour as many of the other plants are dying away and will need cutting back. Though, I rather think they will have rotted down by themselves before I get to do anything.

On Wednesday we went round to my daughter’s house to lend a hand with the ongoing preparation of getting it ready to put on the market. This week I had a go at cleaning the oven as I have one of those really useful large blue trays from Lakeland specifically for the task and it is one item I would hate to be without. I presoaked the removable racks overnight in hot detergent water and then brushed the Lakeland oven cleaner on the stubborn bits and the inside of the oven. It worked a treat and now I just have to ask one of the men to slide the glass panel out of the door so I can clean the inside of it.

Whilst waiting for the oven cleaner to take effect I sprayed more of the mould cleaner on the left over stubborn bits in the bathroom. This time I used HG Mould Spray and found it to be far more effective than either the Cilit Bang or the Dettol Mould sprays. Inbetween I had a go at cleaning up her mid century Gordon Russell sideboard which had belonged to my mum when she first married and set up home. I followed some instructions I found on the internet for restoring old real wood furniture and it has made a substantial difference.

We had an appointment on Thursday morning that we had to cancel and instead make one with the dentist as DH had the beginnings of a tooth abscess and was in pain. He was given anti-biotics to help with the infection which was a relief as on Friday we were travelling up to my younger daughter’s house to meet the girls from school and look after them overnight whilst she went to her head office party miles away near Wigan.

It takes minimum effort on our part to look after the girls now – Little L who has just started secondary school and Sweetie who will be 7 next month mostly entertain themselves. I cooked an evening meal for us all and as it was the first time cooking in my daughter’s new house it was a bit fraught finding everything and working the appliances.

On Saturday we decided to take the girls on a trip up the road to Mount Grace Priory as I had taken advantage of the free English Heritage entry coupon in the newspaper a while ago. The priory was founded in 1938 as a Carthusian monastery and only parts of it remain now in the grounds whilst other parts had already been remodelled in the 17th Century as a mansion.

The weather was glorious and we had a picnic in the grounds sitting in the warm sunshine – it was a little light relief after many days of working hard. The girls couldn’t wait to explore the ruins of the Priory and go inside the restored monks cell, which is a tiny house with an upstairs where they had a loom and spinning wheel to produce woven cloth to sell.

The staircase was so steep it advised you to walk down backwards.

Each of the 25 monks had a separate cell each living a near hermit life. Each cell had a main room, a bedroom and the weaving room upstairs. Outside was a high walled garden where they grew herbs and vegetables and a covered walkway where they might sit and contemplate or pray. There was a water closet down the garden so each cell was quite self contained and the meals were brought to them and placed in a hole which could be accessed from both inside and outside the house.

At this moment in time I would quite like to book into this place for such peace and quiet, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the world and all your food made and delivered to your door. Apart from the fact that the monks did not pay on delivery it resembles the popular Deliveroo system we have today!

The whole place has a long and fascinating history and the house which was converted from the ruins of the medieval priory’s guest house in the style of Arts and Crafts is also open to freely walk around.

The grounds have a newly laid Arts and Crafts style garden too.

It is well worth a visit.

We drove home on Saturday night and spent Sunday recovering and hardly doing anything worthwhile other than a little urgent pruning in the garden to fill our brown garden waste bin ready for emptying tomorrow.

Today the week will begin again with more shopping, cleaning and helping out with the house move. I heard from my elder daughter that the two boys have not been well over the last few days with high temperatures and coughs and now their mum is feeling poorly tonight. I am not sure if we might be on extra childcare this week! I just hope this dreaded lurgy does not come knocking on our door – we haven’t time to be ill.

Thanks for dropping by and welcome to all my new readers – I hope you will make yourselves known sometime as I love to get to know everyone who reads my ramblings!

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dear diary ~ what a long week…

We certainly came down to earth with a bump after our few days away in Cheltenham.

I had great hopes on the Monday for a good week after being thoroughly refreshed by our trip, but it soon changed; beginning with an official letter landing on the mat – one of those in a brown envelope that creates an instant jump in blood pressure. As it turns out HMRC have got their details wrong and a short letter back should put paid to their request. It appears that Rachel from accounts is looking to boost the coffers by any means possible!!

We did however get out for a lovely walk through the village allotments – one of my favourite places….

….. and then up the track towards the moors above us and the spectacular views – in all we did around 8,000 steps and took a few pictures…..we are so lucky to have this on our doorstep and autumn is such a special time of year as everything settles down to sleep through the coming months ahead. It is quite noticeable in the photos just how green the trees are still and laden with their fruits of acorns and spiky conker shells.

On our way back home we collected a few apples going free in a basket on someone’s wall. They look like Bramley’s too and will go well with the cheap punnet of plums from Sainsbury’s perfect for an autumn pudding – apple and plum crumble.

After a late lunch we popped over the hill here to Last of the Summer Wine Country to wish my brother a happy birthday. He is attempting to dig out a pond – he likes a challenge (even at 77) and the bigger the better it seems.

Tuesday has become our shopping day. We pick up our friend Margaret who is 90 next year to take her with us to the supermarket, since she lost her partner last year she has no means of getting to the shops other than the local Access bus. Ours was quite a large shop after being away for almost a week our pantry and fridge needed replenishing. We managed a couple of hours in the garden too while it was dry and DH packed the garden furniture away under their covers to hibernate as well as giving the front lawn an autumn feed.

On Wednesday we went to my daughter’s old house, which she will be putting on the market to sell very soon. I had the ‘short straw’ task of cleaning up the bathroom grouting and sealant. I was quite pleased at how well it looked afterwards – it is a task I need to do at home when time allows. Meanwhile DH was on garden duty outside, pruning back the overgrown shrubs and trimming borders to give that much needed kerb appeal to the place. This was repeated by both of us on Thursday afternoon after my morning appointment with the practice nurse for my annual ‘Mickey Mouse’ review.

I call it a Mickey Mouse review because to me it seems it is just a tick box exercise that allows the surgery to claim a payment and nothing of any significance comes out of it. The nurse takes my blood for the ‘cheap’ thyroid test that only measures the TSH (I have no thyroid gland at all after having thyroid cancer a few years ago and I am fully reliant on thyroxine medication for life). They never order a full thyroid panel from the lab which is far more helpful to get the correct dosage so that I am well balanced between being hyperthyroid and hypothyroid. She then measures my blood pressure, looks shocked and tells me it is 195 over 90 which is usual when I visit the surgery and hands me the dreaded form to take my blood pressure at home for the week to prove her reading is just a glitch and that usually it is within an acceptable range. Then apart from a few questions in relation to alcohol consumption (only needed after a visit to the surgery) and smoking…. that is it – all good for another year.

Only it isn’t…….these reviews never address the hundred and one niggles that creep up on you as you age.

Friday, we had agreed to have baby Chocolate for the day. Adorable as he is the age difference now, him being just over 2 years old and us in our early seventies, is really beginning to show in many ways….mainly the energy levels. Baby Chocolate is a little whirlwind and fearless climber; you cannot take your eyes off him for a moment otherwise you are likely to find him about to abseil from a great height off some piece of furniture or a windowsill. It was raining too heavily to venture out so we had to play games with him inside, at this age they don’t focus on anything for very long.

We had no recovery time on Saturday either as next on our agenda was the 180 mile round trip up to mum’s. Unfortunately, the M62 that joins the M1 going north was closed completely at 2 junctions and the roundabout (after a police car chase that ended with a fatality) with an endless queue and a lot of diversions. The journey was slow so by the time we reached mum there was not time to take her to the park and back in the wheelchair between her carer’s visits so had to make do with a quick trip to the cafe across the road from her apartment. She had her coffee and brownie and we had a chat but she kept saying how disappointed she was that we hadn’t taken her to the park and that we had chosen to go on Saturday rather than her preferred day of Sunday. I kept repeating that we were late because of the road diversions and that my sister was already going on Sunday to see her and take her out. Her memory is so in decline now she cannot really get a grasp on any situation.

There are little signs everywhere that our village is preparing for Halloween (I noticed this on top of the post box) and Morrisons had pumpkins for only £1. When they stayed over the weekend we got back home the grandchildren made these little Halloween treat bags. The bags are brown paper sandwich bags from Sainsbury’s and I printed off some freebies from the internet for them to colour and paste on to the bags. We had a walk to the village to buy some sweets to put in them. They took them home with them for their Halloween night but I will probably make some more for the children who come knocking at my door.

Whilst shopping I popped in to The Works and picked up a few Halloween crafts for me the children to make in the school holidays (is it only 2 weeks away next week?)

This lovely brown printed Christmas tape caught my eye – I am sure it will be useful for something…and the irresistable little snowflake cutter.

Sunday finally came and we had the day to ourselves…by this time I was almost too tired to do very much other than catch up on a few jobs around the house.

I hope everyone is having a lovely week, at least the weather seems to have settled down now. We have done our shopping again today and tomorrow it will be back to my daughter’s house to lend a hand. On Friday we will be going back up north to look after Little L and Sweetie overnight while their mum goes to her employer’s yearly get together. Our little holiday seems a long time ago now.

Back soon x

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dear diary ~ a few days down memory lane

Our visit to Cheltenham last week and the long awaited trip down memory lane was such a wonderful experience. Sometimes, no matter how good the memories of times gone by are you know you just cannot go back it will never be the same. As we wandered around reliving memories of such carefree days it did make us yearn for those old days, those simple days…. but you cannot freeze yourself in the past.

There were moments when I felt I would love to live there again – the Regency architecture so light and elegant at the side of our heavy Victorian gothic style here in the north, the variety of shops and the substantial number of parks and open spaces around and within the town are so inviting. To us, coming from a part of the north that is economically challenged the differences were very noticeable – the whole place oozed wealth and with that wealth comes well appointed properties on leafy streets, with well manicured parks and immaculately dressed and very stylish trim ladies, and hardly any sign of the slobby tracky bottoms, tattoo parlours or charity shops which litter northern towns (that is not a criticsm but merely an observation).

We settled ourselves into the beautiful apartment on Monday teatime then immediately went for a stroll around heading towards the street we moved to just off the high street during my second year.

All that remains are the street signs Grosvenor Terrace and the little alleyway at the lower end. All the houses are gone and replaced with a horror of a multi – storey car park, which my camera refused to take a picture of. And that was another observation – the amount of cars now, so many that they have numerous car parks that were not required back in the 70’s…most people just walked as it is not a large town.

Walking back along the High Street we came to the jewellers shop where we bought my engagement ring in 1975 at a grand cost of £28. This was the shop front in 2018 it looked just the same as the day we bought the ring!

And now – this is what we found – completely empty…but I do still have the ring.

We woke on Tuesday to a gloriously sunny and dry day and we finally arrived at our destination Holst Victorian House museum. For those who don’t know Gustav Holst was a composer who is best known for his famous seven movement orchestral suite The Planets and of which’ I vow to thee, my country’ (a poem by Sir Cecil Spring Rice) was set to music taken and adapted from the Jupiter suite. He also composed the hymn tune called Cranham for the poem ‘In the bleak miswinter’ by Christina Rosetti which earned the title of a Christmas Carol when published in 1872.

Gustav was born in this modest Regency terraced house in Cheltenham in 1874 to parents Aldolph and Clara Holst. His younger brother was born in 1876 and sadly Clara died shortly after and they left the house to live in Vittoria Walk in 1882.

I was met and given a wonderfully warm welcome by Laura, the curator of this museum, and one of the local student volunteers. It was through Laura that DH and I made this visit; we had been considering a trip for goodness knows how many years but never quite made it. The purpose of our visit was to view the bedroom in the Holst house that has been temporarily changed (as far as possible) into that of a 1970’s fashion student as part of acknowledging the final residents of this famous house, the Garlicks, who rented out rooms to the fashion students from the art college at that time.

I personally did not know any fashion students who lived in this particular house but it is a similar, although smaller version, of the Regency house on Prestbury Road I lived in prior to Grosvenor Terrace and through Laura contacting me on my blog I was able to provide her with photos, designs and some written memories of what a real life 1970’s fashion student’s bedroom might be like.

Not all the students on my course during the early seventies would have had a bedroom like this. When I first arrived in Cheltenham I lived in a boarding house providing bed, breakfast and an evening meal and the decoration resembled that of my parents house. Many students lived in such places and were comfortable with it being more home from home in appearance but I left half way through the first term as I wanted to experience real student life with no restrictive landlady and her rules, no matter how grotty the place I had to live in. The student house at 58 Prestbury Road did not disappoint and it certainly was grotty but it was all about the people – we were in some respects the original version of Friends.

Some of the key parts of this period had been carefully selected by Laura and her team; the orange bedspread (mine was similar – my mum’s old candlewick one so popular in the sixties and lasted well into the seventies), the cotton printed Indian bedspreads we used to cover up the old wallpapers most rentals had back then, the very graphic flower printed bedding and the mismatch all round.

Laura had assembled and printed a newspaper to hand out to visitors (see on the bed) that contained my written memories of life as a fashion student together with some of my photos of that time. I had surprisingly few photos and not of good quality as it was an expensive hobby back then to buy and develop film.

The wardobe above was so similar to the one I had in my room at both houses and the kimono dressing gown hung on the door was made from my very first printed length of fabric. We had to create a design that incorporated an element of pattern and would be printed in one colour and repeated.

Many of the sketches I did at the time were copied and pinned up around the room to give a little authenticity…

….but one of my favourite little touches was this blank sketchbook Laura had left for children to draw their own designs in. I remember this is how I started about age 8 just drawing lots of fashion ideas on any scrap of paper I could find not knowing back then that it would eventually lead to a whole career.

This beautiful quilt was hung on the wall, which I believe is on loan from the lady who made it and each of the patches is a genuine 1970’s fabric.

After we said our goodbyes we ventured off to test more of our memory skills. It wasn’t hard to spot 58 Prestbury Road – looking far more elegant than it did when we lived there. After having a small bedroom on the little half landing I eventually moved up into the attic bedroom that is the little tower you can see at the back of the house.

The attic stairs were the only ones to have any carpet – a traditional patterned red one and I rushed out and bought some carpet cleaner to bring it back to an almost new state. I was quite proud of that stair carpet it was the only piece of beauty in the whole place and it was only when one of the students had their mum visiting that we washed the kitchen floor and found the lino actually had a pattern!

We soon noticed that the road was tree lined now – so that was a surprise, but the bus stop and the bench just outside the house was missing.

The little shop I worked in for a while across the road is still going strong.

Of course we couldn’t leave Cheltenham without a day exploring the Promenade, where you find a host of the more expensive chains like The White Company, Hobbs, Anthropologie (need I go on!). I was so focused on the shops I didn’t even get a good picture.

The Promenade leads to the Imperial Gardens and eventually to Montpellier gardens…

…and Montpellier itself where there is a cluster of more individual even more expensive shops with beautiful window displays reminiscent of our time in Vicenza.

It was quite unexpected that there would be a shoe repair shop in amongst them but this is no Timpsons – rather I think he would be mending only shoes that have been handmade in the first place.

They also boast a branch of ‘The Ivy’ although expensive, not as eye watering as I thought it would be….but no we didn’t have a meal there – I just took a charming little picture.

By Wednesday I had walked further than my feet could cope with so we had to limit ourselves to allow for recovery. The day did not start well anyway with an early morning call from my mum in a panic which was not very coherent and by 10.30am I had another call from her carer saying mum had blacked out for a while and she had called the paramedics who were with her at the time and she was refusing to go to hospital. They had not been able to contact my sister, but the paramedics were very good and rang round to try and get her GP to come out (no chance on that one) or a nurse. A nurse came and took blood and eventually a urine sample and my sister finally arrived. So the day was interspersed with phone calls and not knowing if we might have to pack up and go home and sort mum out!

We decided to go out to Pittville Park while waiting for further news and took a flask of soup for lunch and sat by the lakeside to calm ourselves and watch the ducks and the heron.

Afterwards, we walked up to the Pump Rooms and out onto Albert Road. At the top of this road was the Art College and the fashion block – but all is long gone and has been replaced by the student accommodation village. The bus stop near the corner has also gone – it was here one night after college when I waited for the bus down into town that one of the royal cars came around the corner from the nearby race course and slowed down as it passed me and there was the Queen Mother waving from the back seat. I turned round to see who she was waving at but then realised it was me as I was completely on my own. Shame she didn’t offer me a lift!

We decided on the Art Gallery / Museum on Thursday where there are some wonderful William Morris treasures (which is another post another day) and all too soon Friday, the last day, arrived and before heading home we met up with my sister-in-law and her husband who had popped over from Oxford to Winchcombe for a hot chocolate in the Old Bakery and a catch up. Winchcombe is a delightful Cotswold market town heaving with history and those wonderful mellow stone cottages.

It was a delightful end to our visit.

Before we even arrived home we had a call from daughter No. 2 to provide some childcare the next day with an overnight stay at grannies for Little L and Sweetie.

Mum recovered and is awaiting our next visit this week.

Life is soon back to normal!

Back soon x