Tag: out and about

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dear diary :: on a brighter note

Thank you for all the comments yesterday – I really value your support and comments. I know most people probably have some family issues from time to time without actually being a dysfunctional family. As a family we have always stuck together and we will get through this. I know that mum is a very unhappy person at the moment and lashing out at everyone but I am surprised that this now includes my sister as she has always been her favourite; she is eleven years younger than me and the baby of the family so she was left at home with mum and dad from being six years old when my brother and I left for Art College. They have always been so close, worn the same style clothes and at one time had similar tastes in furniture and spent a lot of their time together including holidays so it is sad to hear how she is starting to complain so much about her.

On Sunday we will go up to North Yorkshire to see her for the day and give my sister the Sunday off. I usually take a homemade Quiche, a trifle and a chocolate cake (all mum’s favourites) and of course some Sainsbury’s shopping – unlike my sister I do go to Sainsbury’s so it really won’t be any trouble. I am hoping my visit will cheer her up and have a lasting effect for a while. I might even take my box of photos so she can sit and reminisce for a while of the ‘good old days’ and I will politely listen as if I have never heard the stories before (even though it will be the umpteenth time I have been told them!).

The washer comes today and DH failed to get the new flooring down in the utility – there was no hope really once the leaks had to be dealt with but at least we have made a start on stripping the walls.

We decided not to change the units in here, even though we have had them for years, probably 30 years, but they are plain grey so back in fashion and go quite well with our new cabinets in the kitchen. They consist of a double wall cupboard and one of those slim line pull out larder cupboards with wire shelving. A good clean down and some new handles and I think they will be fine. I bought the wallpaper a few years ago now and I got it out the other day to see if I still liked it….and yes I do. There is only one wall papered the rest are painted so I only got two rolls as it was £20 a roll so I hope the pattern repeat is not too wasteful.

We had a long walk with Freddie in the afternoon. DH decided to down tools and go with us, but it was mostly in the rain – the cold damp rain.

We walked down the rough old mill road to the site of the dye mill – now demolished – until we could go no further with the pushchair.

We then walked back and along the road which runs parallel to the pleasure grounds but much higher up and it runs above this old terrace of mill houses where we once lived. I loved my old house it had four stories and some beautiful old features. By the time we sold we had lived there for 8 years and had done quite a bit of renovating. The modern estate house we are in now was only a stop gap for 3 years until we found our dream home. That was 36 years ago and we never did move to our dream home – instead once the girls had left home we bought the ‘retirement’ cottage in Scotland and began our 10 years of renovations before the flood took all that away.

We continued a little way down this road having a good nosy over the railings to see what our old neighbours had been doing to their houses – a lick of paint, some new windows but it is more or less the same as when we lived there. Eventually we cut off along a disused driveway and came across another snicket running through a more recent estate that took us back to the village. By the time we reached home the rain was quite heavy and our coats rather soaked.

Today is our recovery day after the childcare and I have lots to do on the list – chase up John Lewis again for one who have so far failed to send the ‘care package’ they promised last Friday. I also need to make the food to take up to mum’s for lunch and plant the pots of bulbs if they have not died of thirst in the greenhouse. Then I must try and tidy up this chaos around me, all I did last night was tidy the toys away and make our evening meal before collapsing in a heap.

I did pop my head around the door of the spare room that has become a temporary store for the laundry heap, pending the new washer. It had not self destructed – or washed itself – this new washer had better be good it has a lot of work to do.

Hope you have a good weekend everyone.

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dear diary :: the ups and downs of caring

Some hard playing today – both Master Freddie and I are worn out! He has gone home now and after we have had our tea and I have rung my mum I will be unwinding and then an early night. It was a bit of a rush this morning trying to get showered and my hair dried and styled (if you can call it that as it has now grown out of all recognition of a hairstyle) before Master Freddie appeared.

We love watching Toddler Club together but all that singing, twirling, bopping and jumping around does tell on me, but he always likes me to join in and do the actions with him. At least the music covers all the creaking I make!

And who doesn’t love Hey Duggie – it is far too good for just children to watch – it reminds me of the Magic Roundabout that we all watched as a family just before the news and a lot of the humour in that was perhaps aimed at adults.

The utility room progresses…..s l o w l y……but is at least progressing. I have my doubts that DH can get the floor down now in time but it will be what it will be and at least the new washer will be plumbed into new pipework that doesn’t leak.

We had our usual walk today – Master Freddie loves to post a letter in the big red box outside the post office in the village so today we made a card using some of my stamps and inks for his mummy and daddy. It was a master piece (sorry forgot to take a picture) and then put it into an envelope and put it in the post. They will get a nice surprise in a day or two – and maybe Freddie will when it arrives and he recognises it as the one he posted. Of course both Freddie and granny had more ink on them than the card – but it was fun.

We saw the ducks in the tiny garden of one of the houses, counted the dongs on the church clock when it struck two…..

….and found little pockets of daffodils – even in some gloomy corners.

Despite the tiredness looking after Master Freddie is such a joy although not much housework is getting done here – a quick run round with the vacuum cleaner (does anyone else refer to it as the hoover?) to remove the Play-doh bits from the carpet (thanks for the warning Mary – no lasting damage thank goodness) and that was it – everything else will have to wait until the weekend…..well Saturday as we are planning on going up to see my mum on Sunday to give my sister a day off.

Caring for my mum is not proving to be the same kind of joy especially for my sister who lives near to her and sees her on the days the carers don’t go in. We have just had our Covid test which was negative so we like to go when we know we are at our safest and not likely to take anything in to her flat. My sister is struggling and there is little I can do to help ease the burden for her at the moment. Mum is very down with her situation – not just the virus and the lockdown but more because she cannot do anything by herself anymore and is reliant on others and they never do anything in the way she wants it doing. She has got into the habit of sitting all day and this is actually not helping her hip or shoulder as the lack of movement, the consultant told her, is costing her muscle tone and exacerbating the problem. She is not able to look after herself properly but would hate to go into a home and in any case would make the carer’s lives and ours a misery with complaints. At the moment she has a carer going in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 4pm and they can never do anything right and one or two have had their rotas changed so they can have a break from her. Many of the other residents just avoid her now wheras at one time would pop in. She is definitely becoming more negative as time goes on and doesn’t have a good word to say about anyone at the moment, not even my sister.

Last week she refused to eatany of the shopping my sister had taken her because she had bought it from Tesco and not Sainsbury’s. Apparently she cannot eat Tesco’s food and the corned beef wasn’t very nice even though she had not even opened it, she could tell it wasn’t very nice just looking at it. She is even convinced that Heinz tomato soup does not taste the same from Tesco – it is inferior to Sainsbury’s so she won’t eat that either. So guess who will be going to Sainsbury’s on Saturday to pick up some food for her. Should I be indulging her? Sister quite rightly is often in tears.

Mum has always been one of life’s complainers – but she is my mum and I want to do the best for her and so does my sister but she is not making it easy to care and look after her.

Life, I think, is about to get much more difficult.

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dear diary :: progress (maybe)

There may be progress but I am not sure – DH continued in the utility room today – for one of the smallest rooms in our house we are experiencing far too many problems. The hot water pipe was disconnected and a new piece of that white plastic stand pipe purchased ( the one at the back of the machine that you hook the rubber hose into for the water to drain away) as it needed to be a few centimetres taller for this new washer (wouldn’t you just know it). DH came out of Wickes yesterday with the wrong circumference size in error and luckily I spotted it as he was loading it into the car so he had to return it only to find the 40cm he needed was out of stock. Back to B&Q.

When he was replacing the pipe into the ‘U’ bend trap or whatever it is (see how technical I am here) it did not fit and he realised the old pipe had at sometime been modified and rammed in – but not very well. So back again to town this morning to get a new trap thingy. That is all in place now and the wallpaper steamer was rolled out to remove the old wallpaper and paint which has been flaking off with all the moisture in there. The paint came off like a dream in the kitchen and dining room right down to the bare plaster – in the utility it is not budging…..an inch!

The washer comes on Friday and DH has not even started on the flooring yet.

I took Master Freddie out for a walk; down to the village to post a letter and then round the back way, which is a little longer than going straight home, to give DH more time to himself. I didn’t take any photographs today but I do have some from last week’s walk when we went through the pleasure grounds and I snapped a few more snickets and ginnels, so I will show you these.

The pleasure grounds were made for the mill workers and run alongside a stream that once served the old dye mill further up the valley – we used to live over the bridge on the other side. You follow a winding path through a wooded glade along the valley bottom.

Evidence here and there of a little yarn bombing or is it pom-pom bombing?

And many fairies live here…..

As well as some pretty frightening animals.

Eventually you pass the waterfall and come to a small fenced playground at the end which is well used by the little ones. Just a swing, a slide and a rocker but they provide hours of entertainment.

As we leave the pleasure grounds we are in a very old part of the village with some lovely old cottages……

….and the old co-op – established in 1827, it was one of the first co-operative societies and was formed nearly 20 years before the more famous Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. It is unusual to find Georgian buildings in and around Huddersfield, which is mainly dominated by the heavy Victorian buildings, so this little Georgian terrace is one of my favourites.

And this is what I would call a ginnel – a passage way between a row of terraced houses that leads you round to the back.

This house has an even more unusual ginnel not only leading to the back of the house but also to the downstairs.

We made our way back through the maze of snickets which link this old part of the mill village to the main town and the main road. Pushing a pram up here was quite a workout.

Master Freddie will be here tomorrow – it is playdoh day I think. I am sure he would rather help out with the paint stripping so I have to keep him distracted – playdoh will do just that! I hope.

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dear diary :: a bright new day

Thankfully today the rain stopped at about 11 o’clock and we took our chance to get out for a walk with little Freddie. We have been exploring places we haven’t been before around our village; wandering through some of the older housing estates of 60’s semis and rows of Victorian terraces to reach some of the little lanes that run along the valley bottom or take you up and over the hills, but all of them eventually come to a dead end or a narrow track as they hit the moors. We have discovered many a snicket and one today that was suitable for the pushchair, not all of them are – it is amazing what you find. The growing amount of dog dirt on the paths isn’t amazing though and I managed to wheel the pushchair through some…yuck. DH had to disinfect the wheels when we got home as the pushchair has to be carried backwards and forwards in the car.

We got back at midday and immediately organised some lunch – Freddie loves the celery soup that DH makes, it seems to be his favourite. After lunch Freddie had some quiet time with DH, he didn’t actually fall asleep but I think he recharged his batteries (DH too). Meanwhile I washed up, had a turn around the garden in the warm unexpected sunshine (yes I did say sunshine) and then wrote the menus for the week and a shopping list ready for our shopping trip to the supermarket once Freddie had been collected after tea.

Whilst we are doing the childcare I am keeping meals fairly simple and have decided that trying out new recipes will have to wait as just getting any simple meal together when the tiredness sets in is enough at the moment.

But I feel much brighter today and the sunshine certainly helped to lift my spirits – I feel much more in control after a day’s recovery in the peace and quiet yesterday and a bit of a rush around the house with the duster and the vac. DH made a lentil Shepherd’s pie which thankfully covered tonight’s tea as well.

The shopping was expensive tonight as I bought a large box of washing powder, two tubes of toothpaste on offer and a pack of toilet rolls…..and one of those large tubs of Lurpack butter that was still on offer and will join the two I bought last week in the fridge. I buy as many items as I can when they are on offer and my pantry is groaning with certain staple foods like coffee, teabags and cereal.

Thank you for all your comments on the previous post you really do have some good advice and of course I know my own circumstances during these strange times are not in the least unique and that many of you are having a tough time too, if not far worse. And Jayne – yes I know how fortunate I am and I am truly grateful that I can spend so much of my time with little Freddie – I missed him so much during last year when we had periods when we couldn’t see him and I know when the time comes soon for him to return to nursery I will not want to give him up. It has been so hard for everyone not being able to pop round to see family and friends, to celebrate birthdays or just have a cuppa and a natter at someone’s kitchen table. We never realised what a wonderful life we had before until all this happened.

So that was my day – I am going to bed for my recovery sleep now (beauty sleep has long gone in my case). I shall be glad when my consultant can read my blood tests that I had done in January – he is so behind and I feel like my current medication is a bit on the low side and I need some extra Thyroxine which would also help to alleviate some of the tiredness and lack of energy. As I have no thyroid gland I am reliant on having a balanced amount of Thyroxine and enough to supress any recurrence of the cancer cells. I am even too tired to worry about it!

Tomorrow I am hoping for more sunshine so we can get out again and explore a little more. We are having Freddie for longer and so I have requested his pyjamas so that if he falls asleep after his tea he will be all ready for bed when he gets home.

On the washer front I am dithering – I like the look of three – but how do you choose a good washer – what a shame you cannot try before you buy.