Tag: general chit chat

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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

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dear diary ~ the sound of emptiness

I felt an overriding sense of sadness yesterday knowing that the grandchildren are now in school and my house is so very, very quiet. No little voices saying ‘granny can I……’

Over the summer months I have felt like I have been living in Legoland whilst every flat surface has been claimed to display one or other of the Lego sets that once belonged to my two daughters. I had the good sense to squirrel them away in the loft when they left home for such an occasion as having grandchildren. We have the airport, police station, fire station, restaurant, riding school, hospital and chalet and the grandchildren have just loved building each one with some expert help from grandad the architect.

Over the last 2 or 3 weeks we also introduced them to the fun of a nature walk, gathering blackberries to make crumbles and searching out bits and pieces for granny’s nature table – swapping out the beach pebbles and shells for pine cones and sycamore keys and discovering magical things like skeleton leaves. I especially love displaying our autumn finds with the earthy colours and lots of textures. I didn’t have time to glycerine the leaves though so they will soon shrivel and crumble away, but no matter part of the fun was in finding them. I am watching the laden Spanish conker tree that is overhanging the wall in someone’s front garden on the way to the village and waiting patiently for the first ones to fall onto the pavement.

I am already missing the energy that they bring to the house but Sweetie left me with this lovely picture she made to cheer me up.

Yesterday morning we deposited DH’s car at the garage and then went to Sainsbury’s for some food. We each have a trolley and do a scan shop so that we can take advantage of all the smart shop reductions, the general nectar reductions and the nectar points, but it is hard work co-ordinating everything. Often for the same item DH will be given more points than me or vice versa, so of course we use the nectar card that will provide the better reward. Being as frugal as possible takes a good deal of time.

When we arrived home on Saturday we had very little in the fridge and no fresh fruit and veg but luckily the pantry is well stocked with tinned and dry goods and we had bread and a pizza in the freezer. It is good to see the fruit dish full again and although I have a few tomatoes ripening in the garden (I bought Totem patio variety again this year and mine are the assortment of sizes below) we needed to buy extra so we can make soup. This week the large Jubilee variety were on offer – excellent for tomato soup and DH got points for the cherry vine ones.

I often make ice lollies to keep in the freezer from cartons of juice for the grandchildren and these packets of Cawston pressed fruit caught my eye – no added sugar or sweeteners and of course so much cheaper than buying lollies.

Sainsbury’s is currently having a sale on homewares and electricals. I am now on the lookout for little Christmas presents and these two items caught my eye. I think I might make up a little basket of a bottle of homemade drink and some nibbles to go with these little wooden coasters and I will make table mats with the tea towels. The coasters were reduced from £8. to £5.33 and the tea towels £6.50 reduced to £4.33.

Looking through the old photos for yesterday’s post I came across this one from 1966 which made me smile. I mentioned in recent posts that I am always left pushing the pram when we go out with the family (I love it of course) and this picture shows me in training when my younger sister was born. This is certainly a vintage pushchair haven’t they changed so much over the years? This one no doubt would have been second hand like the cot – people didn’t often buy new in those days.

I would have just finished my first year at grammar school when this was taken so would be about twelve and my dad had bought me my first sewing machine a year before because I was mad keen on sewing. Mum of course would have knitted the cardigans. I cannot believe how young she looks here. I remember making my sister’s little dress from this pattern – I think my gran made mine (she was a tailoress by trade and started me sewing at age 6) – the A line and shift styles were so easy to make I was soon making my own dresses and a few tunic tops for my mum and a neighbour.

Not only does the house seem empty but I too feel empty – I didn’t sleep well last night as my mum is constantly on my mind. The social worker had another meeting with her and the home care carers yesterday and of course being so far away I couldn’t attend. Although the social worker said she would ring and update me afterwards it was perhaps too much to hope she would contact me straight away. I am concerned that she has got everything in place for mum to go home next Monday and that she has rung to check that the lift is now working in the apartment block where she lives as it has been out of order many times recently.

Since all this started with mum’s fall back in May I have had to keep notes of every conversation that I have and jot down who with on what date at what time. It is exhausting. I feel like I am always chasing and complaining and that isn’t who I am and it is making me feel like I am a bad person. It appears unless you get a bit stroppy nothing gets done.

I think there are many people going through the same issues with the care system. It is not until you are involved that you realise how complex and useless it is. I am so worried now about DH and I becomming ill and what our daughter’s might be up against in the future as we age (which inevitably we will do). Something needs to be done but who is going to listen?

It was quite heavy rain yesterday and much cooler, quite refreshing really and the dry borders will be well soaked. To help cheer me up DH made a hearty leek and lentil stew for our evening meal which we had with a crusty roll – proper comfort food.

Oh well…… here’s to a better day today. x

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dear diary ~ end of an era

A day of drizzle yesterday, but that was fine for me after all the hot, humid weather. We looked after Master Freddie for the last time on a weekday as he starts school today and it is such a painful parting knowing that it will only be during the school holidays and weekends that we will be able to look after him and take him out. Sweetie who is a similar age started school last week so with 3 of the 4 grandchildren now in school it is the end of an era for us. Of course we have baby Chocolate and no doubt we will be pushing the pram round the streets to the park as we did only 4 years ago with Freddie and Sweetie.

All through the hot weather I have only been doing jobs that have required minimal exertion – I am not sure if contacting the social worker meets this threshold as I know my blood pressure will rise during the conversation and often I am on the verge of saying something quite rude as the frustration with them increases. I only want what is best for mum and to keep her safe. On the other hand they pretend that this is also their aim but in the end it is the financial implications to the council that will actually determine this.

If you happen to require a lot of medical attention as a baby in intensive care it is most likely provided despite the cost…but fast forward to the last years of your life when you are equally frail and vulnerable and the care is not quite so forthcoming. This not to say that the carers themselves do not care – they do and are heroes – elderly people are not quite so cute and cuddly as a baby and the whole set up in care homes and for care in the home is grossly under resourced and underfunded. I only hope the powers that be that set the rules and guidelines experience the difficulties my mum is going through.

It was my late dad’s birthday yesterday (sadly, he shares the date with the 7/11 disaster), he would have been 101 had he lived. He was such a caring, gentle man and I still miss him everyday seventeen years on.

This is him with mum on their wedding day in 1946

The wedding took place at Wadsley Parish Church in Sheffield.

and my wedding day in 1976

and their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1996.

Sadly he died a few months before his Diamond Wedding anniversary in 2006.

Mum, bless her, never even mentioned him – she is far too involved with her own troubles at the moment to even remember. I thought it best not to mention it so she didn’t get even more upset. She would normally have remebered her wedding anniversary day too back in August but again the date never registered with her.

Before I went away I managed to get all our finances up to date but already after the space of a week the pile is growing. I have various bill payments to set up online and contact the Skipton yet again about my ISA account which should have been transferred back in March to a higher paying interest account and it was overlooked at a great loss of interest to me. I did get to change my mobile provider from Vodaphone to Lebara (who piggy back on Vodaphone). My rolling contract has increased data for a lower monthly payment.

We have absolutely no fresh veg in the house other than a few potatoes and a handful of tomatoes from the garden. I am not looking forward to going shopping this week, in fact we really need to have a spend free month to offset the enormous petrol costs we are incurring going up and down the 90 miles to see mum. Whichever shelf or aisle you look down at the supermarket I think the average price for an item is now hitting £3. We take advantage any offers that come our way but even this is not reducing the weekly spend on food or toiletries. You can scrimp and save here and there but the minute you go out for the day and buy ice creams or a drink out you are looking at handing over that £20 note and not receiving very much change. The ice creams for 6 of us at the National Trust shop came to £16.20. There were no childrens cones just Magnums, Cornetto’s and those little, even more expensive, tubs of award winning ice cream.

Today we have to take the car back to the garage as for some reason during the hot weather the car fails to start until we open the bonnet for 5 minutes and then it is fine until the next time we stop and park the car!

Despite the hot weather Autumn is advancing so I need to begin clearing up in the garden. I did an hour of tidying in the greenhouse on Sunday and I now have a stack of seed trays and small plant pots to wash out and dry ready for next year. I did quite a bit of clearing in the shaded part of the garden too – cutting down perennial flowers that are definitely over now. Some of them have regenerated like the catmint that I cut back before our holidays but the majority are well and truly over. The string of solar lights didn’t even come on last night because it was mainly overcast all day so I will probably take them down, clean them up and pack away for next year too. I might leave the compost turning to DH after I empty the side that has the well rotted compost, this warm weather has created such a wonderful rich, dark, crumbly compost which I am adding to the borders as I weed them.

For anyone who is having difficulty leaving a comment and I know there are a few readers who are – to find the comment box you need to click on the post title and it takes you through to the comment page. You do not have to leave your name and email but I believe it is better if you do.

I am having a lot of trouble commenting on Blogger blogs as I usually sign in with Google and I often have to click on the Google option a few times before it brings up my name otherwise it stays as anonymous.

Back soon, take care x

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dear diary ~ the ups and downs of life

Just thought I would drop by and say hi….it has been awhile I know but there are reasons for that which I will explain as we go along. Due to time constraints this is a post that has been written on different days, in different places over the last month or so and I hope today I will press that publish button!

The first instalment written in Scotland in the middle of June as we escaped for a few days break.

What a glorious summer, though a little more rain would not go amiss. Most years I wait eagerly for May and June to come along and then they are quite over before I feel they have even begun.

I am sitting here in a shady part of the garden in Scotland relaxing as I write this post with a glass of cool ginger beer watching the sand martins busily darting here and there, the sea is a deep azure colour with gentle surface ripples rather than waves and it feels like paradise could not be much better than this.

There is a down side to all this perfection of course and a reason I have not been posting for over a month – life here has taken a bit of a down turn –  though in and amongst, as in most cases, there have been moments of sheer joy.

So perhaps the good news first….

….starting with the birth of our new grandson on the 21st May and the celebration of DH’s 70th birthday on the 25th.

May birthdays, I always think, are special – midway between spring and summer with prolonged warm days, longer lighter nights and gardens that are in full bloom. What could be more wonderful and uplifting?

It has been a long process deciding on a name for the new baby and for the purpose of my blog I will be referring to him by the preferred name of Master Freddie, his older brother, as ‘baby Chocolate’ (and before you ask I have no idea where that came from but it goes well with our second granddaughter’s pet name Sweetie chosen by her big sister Little L).  Both mum and baby are doing well and managing the challenges that come up daily when you have a pre-schooler to look after at the same time.

To mark DH’s birthday we spent the day at York Garden in Adel on the outskirts of Leeds.

With the birth of the baby originally scheduled for the 24th I had not been able to book a weekend away or organise a large party for him with friends so a day out to a place of his choice seemed the next best thing. As a birthday treat we decided we would eat lunch at their cafe rather than packing up a picnic as we would normally do these days.

However, like all good plans things often don’t work out.  We arrived at the garden at midday, paid our entrance fee and just as we approached the cafe door a lady barred our way and said ‘sorry the cafe had to close for the day due to unforeseen circumstances (technical issues) beyond their control’. So back to reception to ask where we might get something to eat and would they let us back in without paying again. Following their directions we drove up the road to Golden Acre Park where we were told we would find the council run cafe. It was basic and not quite what I had in mind for a special birthday treat but it did the trick and after a plate of sandwiches and a drink of tea we went back again to the gardens and spent a lovely afternoon wandering around taking lots of pictures and gathering plenty of ideas to try in my own.

A day or two later on the following Bank Holiday weekend our younger daughter came to stay with Little L and Sweetie and we prepared a simple tea party to celebrate DH’s birthday and the birth of the new baby with the family. 

The grandchildren helped me prepare the party during Saturday for Sunday. They decided on a Spaceman theme for grandad! They had great fun colouring in some new place cards and party food labels using some space themed templates I printed from the internet and whilst they were occupied I set to and made some cheesey leek ramekins ready to bake later in the oven.

Everyone lent a hand in preparing a simple buffet of sandwiches and salads to go with the ramekins, and for afters nothing beats strawberries and fresh cream with jelly for the little ones.

And no birthday would be complete without a cake – a lovely summery fresh cream and strawberry sponge made and decorated by the children specially for their grandad.

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And that was were the fun ended and the next few weeks of total chaos began.

I am now completing this post while staying in my mum’s flat near Yarm in North Yorkshire. She is not here at present as she unfortunately fell on her back in her kitchen the day before all our celebrations but we were told by the doctor and district nurses that she was OK – it later transpired that she wasn’t and is presently in a care home after a two week hospital stay. Hopefully, the care home is not for good, but as yet we don’t know.

It is hard for me to write this as I feel very let down by the whole NHS system – it is not just broken it is in a complete mess and so frustrating to get any honest information from anyone. This is nothing to do with the nursing staff – some of whom have been marvellous (and one we will be nominating for an award) although there have been a few along the way where delivering care to the patient is not foremost in their duties.

Sitting for hours with mum on the ward it was hard not to overhear the discussions by the staff over their patients. The lady in the next bed to mum was actually diabetic – the nursing staff did not realise until she was being prepared for discharge. She had been in there 5 days and in all that time her levels had not been taken. She had respiritory problems and was permanently on oxygen but the hospital staff then found they had been giving her double what she should have! My mum was in for almost 2 weeks and came out with a pressure sore but this was not documented on the hospital discharge letter, (but noticed by the care home staff on arrival at the home), and she had not been transferred to a pressure mattress to alleviate it. On the first night of admittance to the emergency assesment ward at about 11pm after being in A&E since 4pm the porter had to make the bed for her, there was no pillow and I had to use my folded coat until he managed to find a blanket as a temporary substitute – no nurse came to introduce herself and no one asked if she had been given a drink or any food and we had to leave her like that. In the morning when we went back a pillow had been found (just the one as they are apparently short on pillows) and at meal times there were not enough forks so the patients had to use their pudding spoons. I will not even comment on this!!

In all, over 5 days after the fall my mum had six attendances at home from paramedics and health professionals responding to my 111 calls and the telephone assessments and all of them attending her had differing opinions. She was taken to A&E twice – released the first time and hospitalised on the second. The initial x-ray showed no break and her hip fracture was only picked up on a scan on the second admittance to hospital (the pain she was in being totally disregarded). In fact the very first call I made to 111 prompted a home visit from a ‘medical professional’ and after his examination and assessment diagnosed a hip fracture but this was never taken seriously by the variety of medics, doctors and therapist who saw her after this.

She is, as many readers will know, 97 – she is in pain, she is confused
(though doesn’t have dementia) and she has no idea what is happening or going
to happen and to be fair neither do we. There are so many people involved –
district nurses, care workers, community therapists, social workers and so much
jargon. She has had endless assesments over and over and for what we have no
idea either. And at the end of it all everything comes down to funding – or
lack of it….but part of the problem is that they waste so much money.

On top of all this my mum is not an easy person and is convinced that she
must lie completely still in bed for her hip to mend but the reality is she
needs to keep moving and do exercises to keep her muscle strength but she won’t
engage with the physiotherapists and keeps sending them away saying she is in
too much pain, too tired, too hot, too cold …..

The care staff are not allowed to get her up and out of bed as this is only
done by the physios but so far they have only managed to get her sat on the
edge of the bed….once! Her 4 week NHS funding for this assessment/ rehab bed
ends next week, the physio involvement will diminish considerably if she
doesn’t co-operate and it is looking like she will be permanently in a care
home and bed ridden for the rest of her life. To say I am frustrated is a bit
of an understatement and I am now at a loss as to how I can motivate my mum to
help herself.

All I can say is never be ill and end up in hospital!

10.07.23 – Further update

It has been a long 6 weeks now and I am totally exhausted spending a few days in North Yorkshire then a few days at home and grabbing bits of time to help my daughter out with the new baby by having Freddie for the day. Last Tuesday Mum was assessed again by the social worker as needing a further short term placement at the care home – for which she will now pay privately as NHS funding stopped after 4 weeks. Her room is well over £1000 a week and we still have to pay the service charge on her flat as well as a retainer for her home carers until she can go home or goes into permanent care. Before the new government rules applied (where long term patients in hospital are now transferred into care homes) her hospital stay would have been covered under the NHS.

We have had a small break through and at last they have got her moving just a little and she managed to sit in a chair for a short time this week but is not allowed in a wheelchair yet. She has had a urine infection this last week which has caused paranoia and delerium (which is not a nice condition for patient or relatives), mum was ringing me constantly on the phone from 8pm to after midnight because she couldn’t find her buzzer to alert the staff. It was just by her hand but with her confusion could not recognise it. At least that is under control now but she has been told she rings for the staff far too much and is very needy (thats my mum!).

We are at home for a few days now catching up with household things here but we did have a day out to ourselves last Saturday and went down into Derbyshire to the Open Gardens in the village of Eyam. A very interesting place and hopefully if time allows I will share a few photos in my next post.

Thank you to those readers who have been concerned about the long gap and have contacted me and welcome to my new readers who have signed up during my absence and I apologise for the rant and negativity that you will have found in this post – normal
service will resume soon I hope.

Sorry about the wierd spacing near the end of the post something happened when I tried to save it and I don’t have the energy at the moment to alter it!

And to all the bloggers I usually connect with and have not, as yet, caught
up with I hope you are all well and will be hearing from me soon. x