Tag: celebrations & events

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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 ~ space clearing

It’s been a while, it’s also been quite frantic here and as usual it’s been stressful and joyful in equal quantities….well almost, perhaps a little more on the stress and a little less of the joy!

I just thought I would pop by as I can’t believe it is the latter part of February already and I have only completed a few tasks on my long, long to do list. I decided that the beginning of the new year called for a major declutter in our house to regain some lost space. I intend for this mad clear out to also include the loft, shed and garage….though at the moment it is far too cold to be in any of those places for any length of time.

I am hoping it is a case of it will get worse before it gets better as the whole house is in a mess now with piles everywhere destined for charity or recycle or a friend or craft group. Hardly anything is rubbish, very little has gone in the bin – it just needs rehoming…. either at my house or hopefully someone elses.

As I go through every drawer and cupboard, every box and bookshelf I am finding that as I remove more and more I am loving the space and it is becoming much easier to part with things.

After Christmas I sorted through all the decorations before I packed them away and took a bag full down to the charity shop – I have found as time goes on I am putting out fewer and fewer decorations each year.

I did have a box full of lovely cards that friends have handmade for me over the years – I picked out the best and then photographed the remainder before putting them in the recycle. Such a shame but I can’t keep everything.

Christmas seems a long time ago now. We had a large family gathering at my sister’s house for Christmas dinner and we managed to get my mum there too though the one little step at the front door was quite a challenge for her.

The grandchildren were busy before Christmas making their traditional place name cards which were wonderfully decorated and have now gone into my keepers box with the others.

I even managed to make a few cards myself and had a bit of a production line going one day. Thank heavens for rubber stamps as they are quick and easy to use when I run out of time to do my own lino cut.

Since Christmas it hasn’t been all work and no play…. during January we celebrated Master Freddie’s 5th birthday (at one of those ear splitting play gyms with a party room) and my mum’s 98th birthday – a much quieter affair. The weekend after her birthday my sister and her husband took mum out to a posh hotel for a meal during which mum suddenly stopped eating and went unconscious at the table – her head slumped but her eyes remained wide open staring ahead and they could not get a flicker of a response from her for over 10 minutes, it was only the fact that they could detect a faint pulse that they knew she hadn’t actually died! During this time my sister got reception to call for help – they wouldn’t send an ambulance – obviously not thought urgent enough but passed her over to a 111 person who asked my sister a load of questions to establish mums condition.

Eventually, mum finally rowsed and started talking as if nothing had happened and finished her meal – she didn’t even realise anything had happened. The 111 person then ended the call as they thought she sounded OK and said they would refer her to her GP who did actually go and see her next day and take some blood tests. The results showed a blood abnormality but the GP said they would not do anything because of her age – so far she is a write off then and so far no-one knows why she went unconscious for so long!

For her birthday I bought her one of those large button TV remote controls as she was having difficulty changing the channels with the tiny buttons on hers and was always pressing the wrong thing. She had been intent on getting a new TV just to get a different remote (her mind works in a mysterious way these days) even though I told her it would not be any different to what she already had. The new remote has been wonderful – it has fewer buttons for her to press so she can’t press something she didn’t intend to and end up on the shopping channel or mute it by accident and best of all she doesn’t get it muddled up with the telephone anymore either and try to call me on it.

So far this month we have spent a good deal of time researching a new but used car for my daughter. It is unknown territory for us as we have only been used to new ones – DH had a company car and we always saved up to buy my small car outright and traded in the older one in part exchange. The big question was who do you trust …..we do not know much about cars to buy at one of these auction sites or from a private individual so we resorted to a local Kia dealer as that was the make she wanted with the 7 year warranty….or as in her case the remaining years of a 7 year warranty.

After two days of trawling websites and a spreadsheet to capture all the information we fnally found one that ticked all the boxes at Perry’s in Rotherham. It was a 2020 reg with only 11,000 miles and one owner. It looked like new with good quality Michelin tyres hardly worn. We took her and the girls down last Saturday to pick it up. It is a long story but she had only driven it for 14 minutes along the M1 northbound when we got a call from her saying mum I have broken down!!!!

It was no joke.

Whilst driving the tyre pressure sensor suddenly came on the dashboard at the same time as the rear passenger side tyre blew and went completely flat. She couldn’t even make it to the next exit to get off the motorway.

Of course she rang her breakdown company but they had failed to mention that by switching the cover from her old car to the new one there was no immediate cover and it would not kick in until the next day.

Perry’s in Rotherham could not recover the car but they gave me a number to ring for a local recovery man. Imran came to the rescue – he was so lovely and got my daughters car on his breakdown truck and off the motorway so he could swap the wheel for the emergency one in the boot – that was the first expense of £200.

The next day my daughter got the tyre examined at our local Halfords – it had a few holes in it and one still had a visible nail head embeded in it. Halfords showed her where a nail must have popped out when she was driving and had been the cause of the sudden flat. On examination it was found that the tyre had already had a repair in the past so it had to be a new one – another expense of £99 ….luckily only the one was needed as the other rear tyre was like new.

It is yet another mystery as my daughter did not notice anything on the road at the time and had only been on a normal A road before getting onto the motorway – she had not been down any rough tracks. Once my daughter is back from her holiday Perry’s are going to look in to it but as it is a punctured tyre I expect there will be no come back on them.

We are now in Scotland to rest and recover for a few days and where I can plot and plan for more space clearing when I get home. I have brought some bits and pieces to do up here along with my knitting in the hope of finishing baby Chocolates little hooded jacket.

I hope everyone is well and enjoying 2024 – many apologies to anyone coming over on the 15th for the ScrapHappy Challenge I will try my best to show something for March, and welcome to new readers – as you will have realised by now my blog posts are a bit hit and miss!

How is your new year going so far this year?

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creating christmas * the ups and downs

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

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dear diary ~ finding my way back

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