Tag: out and about

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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

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beaching ~ homeward bound

Our time at the cottage came to an end, as it inevitably does, all too soon with many gardening tasks left unfinished or not even started but we just have to accept we do what we can in the time available.

Of course in hindsight travelling home on a Bank Holiday Monday was not the best of ideas but one borne out of the fact that our half way overnight stop in Carlisle at the Premier Inn was so much cheaper on the Sunday night.

It was exceptionally busy, both in the hotel and on the roads.

Once I am orientated towards home I suddenly get a longing to be back and reacquainted with all my own things, especially my bed, so we didn’t have a leisurely trip down this time. We left Carlisle at about 10am and as we neared the top of the Lakes the traffic had increased considerably but no queues had formed and we seemed to keep rolling. Our main stop was when we pulled off the M6 at junction 36 (Crooklands Interchange) and headed for Burton in Kendal, hoping to find a cafe for a drink.

A very interesting village with some grand architecture which I thought had quite a French influence in style.

Some interesting street names too.

Sadly, the little village only has a shop with a coffee machine and no tea, the Kings Arms is presently closed for a refurb and the main road through was like a race track and parking non-existent for visitors……I took a few pictures on a quick walk around – it is a long drawn out village and halfway along we decided to cut the exploration short and never made it as far as the church as the noise level of the through traffic drove us back to the car and we moved on ending up at the notorious Lancaster motorway services with a hundred other fellow travellers lunching at Costa. The queue for service was long and the vegetarian selection limited but luckily we managed to grab the very last two mushroom, egg and spinach baps to tide us over – but again with all the noise and grubby tables we didn’t stay long.

Once we arrived home and unpacked I realised how exhausted I was but a quick walk to our village was necessary to pick up some fresh milk and rolls. We came across the end of the village Scarecrow Trail and stopped here and there to admire the ‘Royal’ scarecrows.

The ‘quick walk’ took much longer than we thought and once back home again I prepared a nourishing lentil and leek stew for tea and then relaxed in front of the TV for a while….promptly falling asleep while the tea cooked itself on the hob.

I promised pictures of the cottage garden. As we left many plants had grown over the fortnight we had stayed there and were just about to bloom. The ferns had grown so much in height unfurling as they go.

I was surprised at how many primulas had sneaked up around the pond as I thought we had lost a lot under the heavy leaf fall from the sycamore it lies beneath – they might be a spectacular sight that we will miss by our next visit.

Looking down from the lane it all looks under control but believe me in a garden like this with the wild flowers like red campion and blue alkanet poised and ready to invade nothing is under my control….we only manage it.

This is the view from below looking up toward the lane – doesn’t look so good now from this view does it!!

DH has still to finish the staging – but it was never going to be this visit and I had to content myself by removing as many of the overgrown wild planting of campion, buttercups, alkanet, some extremely viscious nettles and the straggling goosegrass, as I could – uncovering the few actual plants that had not been nudged out or given up. It was a place I didn’t get to weed last year and the results are always the same – the invaders move in swiftly.

These old terracotta drainage pipes I use for herbs. I had to clear them of the old ones as they had become huge and woody. The rosemary had reached 5 feet with a four foot root and had lost the will to live – probably through exhaustion a couple of years ago and no amount of pruning back encouraged it back to its former state. It is a sheltered and sunny and spot by the conservatory and the open ended drainage pipes act as a deep rooted bed and the soil here is very fertile so I will set some herb seeds at home and plant fresh ones again this year.

The solomon’s seal is one of my favourite plants in the lower wood and they continue to spread and march along quietly interspersed now with the bluebells – well, unfortunately they are the Spanish variety set by the previous owner and there is no hope of ever getting rid of them to replant with the English variety so I just have to tolerate them – but they look equally as beautiful at this time of year covering the wood floor.

I left a little patriotic contribution to the Coronation celebrations next week.

The dicentras are spreading nicely again and the white have now merged with the pink.

The cherry tree keeps going – it needs attention too but we keep thinking it will not survive much longer – it must be getting on for 50 years old, has some form of hard fungus at the bottom of the trunk and has had to undergo some rather extreme pruning in its time but it merrily carries on flowering each year although the striking pink candyfloss that looms up over the weeping larch is not as abundant as it once was.

The tale of our latest confrontations with the new site owner will be told another day. As always it tainted our visit somewhat – my head says to leave but my heart is still drawn to our little tumble down cottage with its wild garden looking out over the sea.

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meandering ~ Portpatrick

We took some time out on Thursday to go over to Portpatrick, a little harbour village known locally as the Port. It was an overcast and grey day with a cool wind coming off the Irish sea. The fields were full of baby lambs of various sizes and markings – these playful ones came to the fence when we stopped the car to look at them.

Very little was open but we had a look in the Smuggler’s Cove and the Lifeboat shop. I always try to buy at least a card from them – the lifeboats are mainly funded through donations and every little helps.

We had our picnic lunch of homemade mushroom soup and fresh rolls in the car (the only warm place) and afterwards braved a walk around the harbour and then along the back roads past the putting green and eventually coming out again on the main road.

We headed for the old parish church, abandoned long ago in 1842 and now just a ruin, and situated on the north side of St Patrick Street in the centre of the village. Strangely the church is dedicated to Saint Andrew rather than Saint Patrick and was built in 1628-29 to serve the newly created Portpatrick parish. The building is in a cruciform or Greek cross plan and may be the earliest cruciform church in Galloway.

The adjacent graveyard continued to be used for burial until the later 19th century when it was replaced by the New Cemetery on Portree Terrace. Below must be one of the earliest graves.

I am always drawn to this little forgotten church as the graveyard is full of relatives on the maternal side of DH (who was born in Stranraer – the nearby town) and whose family are of the Kerr clan and lived throughout the area. They are said to be left handed and their clan towers had circular staircases that spiralled in an anti-clockwise direction rather than the usual clockwise.

The warlike Clan Kerr trained to use their weapons with their left hands. Scottish Poet James Hogg (1770-1835) wrote, in The Raid of the Kerrs:

But the Kerrs were aye the deadliest foes
That e’er to Englishmen were known
For they were all bred left handed men
And fence [defence] against them there was none

and Walter Laidlaw wrote, in The Reprisal:
So well the Kerrs their left-hands ply
The dead and dying round them lie

And if you are wondering DH is right handed but two of the grandchildren are quite markedly left handed – maybe skipped a generation.

Many of the graves contain a whole family of people and at the top of the gravestone it gives the length and breadth of the plot.

On close inspection there are numerous spelling mistakes and whole words left out like on this one where the actual length is omitted.

I love this gravestone that resembles a doorway into a secret garden. At the moment the grass is covered in a sea of bluebells – who wouldn’t want their soul to rest here.

We continued along the North Crescent – GR postboxes are quite rare to find and this one warns of a revised collection times. Thankfully it is still in use – I always think it is so sad to see them in disuse with a piece of wood blocking off the posting slot.

And of course no visit is complete without taking a photo of my favourite little house beside the harbour lighthouse. I just love the striking colours and brightly painted wooden shutters that protect against the raging winter sea.

We have spent most of our time in the garden whilst the weather has been good but there has been a change today with some heavy showers and quite a damp feeling. There have been days when it has felt like hard labour and we are now ready for a rest. It is almost time for us to pack up and leave and we will of course miss so many of the plants about to burst forth. We have had upsets too from the new owner of the little caravan site beside us – it is becoming all too frequent now – but more about that later when I put some pictures on another day of the work we have done.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and welcome to all my new followers. xx

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dear diary ~ holiday almost over

I am writing this in a few snatched moments of peace while daughter and granddaughters are out for a wee while. The quiet and calm is just what I need for an hour or two to recharge.

On Easter Sunday we had all the family for tea and the sun managed to come out for a while so the grandchildren could enjoy the Egg Hunt around the garden. Of course we had to make sure each of them found a similar amount of eggs so I hid some quite well so they were not so easily spotted.

The chicken casserole went down a treat and I got the thumbs up from my younger daughter who was chief taster during the cooking process – being vegetarian I never get to taste what I cook if it contains meat. Whilst dinner was cooking the children made me some lovely Easter name cards for the table using a sheet of stickers I found in our local post office and crayons.

They also helped with some of the decorations – I had bought some of those white chalk marker pens for glass and let the grandchildren loose drawing patterns on my windows – they thought it great fun….and yes it does wash off.

Little Freddie was far too excited to eat very much, being an only child (though not for long now) he likes nothing better than having Little L and Sweetie to play with him and didn’t really want to stop for tea. DH played hide and seek with them and at one point Sweetie came to say that they had searched the house and could not find grandad anywhere – which is surprising as our house is not that big and DH not that small!

Yesterday we took all the grandchildren and their mums out to Portland Basin Museum in Ashton-under-Lyne. They have a lovely old fashioned indoor street of shops, a doctors, schoolroom, pub and chapel complete with dummy people dressed in appropriate costumes. They can seem a little creepy at times as they are so life like a bit like the wax works.

How many people remember £, shillings and pence.

There is plenty to see and do for little ones including a craft session making paper bunnies and mice – the museum is completely free and the craft sessions only £1.30 a child – so very reasonable in price for a lot of entertainment.

We had to eat our packed lunches in the car though as it was bucketing down with rain just as we arrived. Luckily, the museum is mostly indoors with a picnic area outside by the canal and being the holidays they were running boat trips on the canal. There was a big queue for the boat but we decided against a trip in the rain – perhaps another day.

I was a bit worried that the boat might have been this old wreck by the notice….luckily not…it was an old barge and you sat inside out of the rain but seeing through the steamed up windows wasn’t easy according to the people getting off the boat.

Tonight’s tea will probably be pizza with sweetcorn – finding meal combinations that fit everyone’s likes and dislikes is not getting any easier – though surprisingly there is never a problem with puddings – they can be too hot, cold, crunchy, sweet, sour or full of bits but they still eat them with no complaints!

Today was our last day with the grandchildren and tomorrow, if I have any energy left, it will be all hands to the deck to try and get ready for Scotland. The weather here has turned Siberian cold with an overcast sky and outbreaks of rain all day so no washing was done because I couldn’t guarantee I would be able to get it out on the line to dry and there is no space inside at the moment. I was too tired to go into the garden too so there will be jobs to finish before we go if we can. It suddenly occurred to me that I won’t be able to sow any seeds until we get back from Scotland as there will be no-one around to water them and they will probably need doing almost daily in the greenhouse if I cannot open the ventilator – so it would be a big ask of my neighbour who generally steps in and does a little watering whilst we are away. Oh well I will just have to hope they germinate quickly when we get back.

Hope you all had a lovely Easter holiday xx