Tag: out and about

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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 ~ 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

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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 ~ back and forth

Gosh, just when you think life can’t get any busier….it does and hotter too.

On Bank Holiday Monday we took Little L and Sweetie out to Bradfield in Derbyshire. It is a beautiful Peak village and a conservation area. There is a place down by the river to picnic and paddle – our family have always gone there, my mum as a little girl, me and my siblings, our two daughters and now the grandchildren. We had a lovely day splashing about in the water and collected so many interesting things for granny’s nature table.

We spent the rest of the week, after they had gone back home cleaning and packing for the upcoming trip to North Yorkshire last week to stay with my younger daughter to lend a hand with Little L and Sweetie on the school run.

Sweetie started school last Tuesday but for some reason her school have a policy of only taking new reception children for half days…and alternating mornings and afternoons for the first week. This is not only very difficult to arrange for working and single mums but confuses the children no end. Sweetie has no concept that she will be spending a whole day at school next week and having school dinner there. She thinks granny will be providing lunch and taking and fetching her back at all odd times! Whilst I waited at the school gates it was obvious that many working mum’s couldn’t be there for their children on their first day and had to depend on a mix of grandparents, friends and even neighbours to help out and get their little ones to and from school at the appropriate times.

Master Freddie on the other hand, at a different school, starts on whole days straight away but does not start until this coming Tuesday (one week after the main school returned from the summer) – again very difficult for working mums, especially those like my daughter who work within the school system so cannot take time off. The gradual introduction to school is not practised everywhere and the irony is that most of these kids have been spending far longer hours in nursery than they will at school – Master Freddie will be at school 4 hours less and will feel it is a very short day indeed.

Whilst up in North Yorkshire we visited mum on a couple of occasions and she was in tears most of the time. The social worker who has assessed her as having ‘capacity’ and told her she could go home then went on holiday without arranging any care package or making a date for her leaving. So in the meantime mum has been very anxious and one day wants to go home but the next day wants to stay in the care home as she doesn’t think she will cope at home. She has been assessed as needing four care visits during the day but no overnight care so that will take some getting used to as presently in the care home mum can press the buzzer for help if she needs assistance during the night.

Mum is presently self funding as she exceeds the threshold where the local council have to step in and foot the bill so of course the social worker is in no rush to get mum home as it is mum’s money paying the care home bills. Whilst on the short term placement we have been paying in arrears and only oblidged to give one weeks notice. Now the social worker has assessed her as being able to go home this arrangement seems to have terminated and the care home have billed us for the whole of September in advance and we have to give 4 weeks notice. So it might be the end of October before mum can go home as the social worker has not arranged a care package and been able to supply us with a date for leaving so that we can give notice. This will cost mum around £9,000. Of course there is no urgency for the social worker to get this mess sorted as the council are not paying!

I have also been told by social services that if mum did choose to stay in the care home and then her savings fall below the threshold the council would not pick up the bill because she has not been assessed as needing 24 hour care. I rather think she has not been assessed as requiring 24 hour care because they cannot provide her with 24 hour care when she goes home. So it appears that mum will have to go home even if she would rather stay. If ever you have the misfortune to be caught up in the care system you will find it is all about the financial implications to the council and not about the best care of the elderly and vulnerable.

I have no doubt I will be on the phone for most of the week trying to pin down the social worker as she is back from her hols.

It is Heritage week this week and I have made a note of some of the interesting places we might visit. Yesterday we went to Beningbrough Hall (a national Trust property to the north of York) on our way home. My daughter, Little L and Sweetie came with us as it was free entry under the Heritage scheme. We had a little picnic in the shade and then explored the grounds and house. They have a rather unusual tower in the grounds beside the lovely play area for the children in the woods, but I was disappointed that the only water on offer at the cafe was £2.50 a bottle!

I do have plans for the coming 2 weeks where time allows, and hopefully it will not be as exhausting as last week. After all the unpacking, washing and ironing the garden will have priority – weather permitting, and I would like to put another maintenance coat of paint on the shed and greenhouse before the winter. We desperatley need a new garage door too and have arranged for a local company to come and quote.

As far as the house is concerned I would like to give the office / craft room a good clean and I do need to make a few more cards mainly to try and use up some of the card blanks that I bought.

I hope you all have a good week and enjoy the weather – it is a touch too hot for me and gardening might have to be kept to a minimum.

Thank you for all the comments on my last post and thank you Rachel for getting in touch and your concern – I will reply to your email shortly. There is no denying that having blog friends in tough times does help. xx