Time Off

Had a lovely day yesterday with my cousin and his wife (and their utterly squeezable granddaughter). Tiring for mum though as she was convinced that the M62 was a new motorway, we went to see her sister (who has Alzheimers), went out for a meal and she had several glasses of wine.

Today I'm heading back to Devon for a couple of days and then spending the weekend in Cheltenham. Lovely Betty who lives across the road will check on Ma tonight and give her her medication. My brother will pick her up tomorrow and take her back to Rotherham until Monday when I pick her up.

There will be tears this morning but so be it. I will leave her food in the microwave for tea and prime it so all she has to do is shut the door and wait for the ping.Will ask Betty to check that she eats it...

See you Monday!

Easter Sunday

Despite being a lifelong churchgoer, naturally this morning she'd forgotten all about it being Easter and was most confused when I gave her some chocolates with her morning cuppa. I think she thought I'd lost it (that's irony for you Alanis). St. Anne's was very very busy today of course, practically standing room only! Good sermon and some rousing hymns to sing. These days Ma tends to consider church to be a bit of a social club and will wander over to talk to people so I make sure she goes into the pew first. However this doesn't prevent her from standing up and waving... We played hymn book swap all the way through because it's easier for her if I find the relevant hymn rather than letting her struggle. She does get a bit cross about it occasionally and then obstinately sings the index, but on the whole it works fine. Fortunately like any regular churchgoer she doesn't need to read the order of service.

As chaplain to the Queen, the Vicar is off to the wedding on Friday. I do hope there will be some gossip when he gets back!

Beautiful Day

Ma would like to go for a drive somewhere. I fancy a trip to the garden centre to satisfy my new bird feeder obsession. So I think that's a win win situation. I need (need mind you) mealworms, suet cakes, nyjer seed feeder, and anything else that takes my fancy.

There's a nice little cafe there so we'll have a bite to eat no doubt.

I would also like to get a couple of small potted plants for Dad's headstone. Suggestions gratefully received. I thought something along the lines of geranium (not pelargonium), anenomes... something fairly robust but also attractive.

#just saying

Please feel free to post comments, opinions, suggestions and cheap alcohol deals.

Writing this stuff without feedback feels both ridiculously indulgent and incredibly lonely.

Pondering

I'm happy to bimble along looking after the cooking/cleaning/medication/daily routine etc. It's not particularly arduous and in and amongst things I'm able to do some writing and recipe stuff. When Ma goes off on one it can be amusing but it can also be slightly alarming, like it was on Wednesday. I really did try but couldn't make sense out of anything she was saying, not even to go along with her and make a 'conversation' - something which the book recommends as a way of keeping things unchallenging and comfortable for the dementia sufferer. So, for example, if she believes she's on holiday in Barbados, you go along with it. Not a chance of that happening on Wednesday. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get used to it.

This morning she was back to messing about with her medication again. There were tablets everywhere and as five of the seven are round and white and identical I couldn't distinguish one from another. All went in the bin and now the tablets are being kept elsewhere. I do understand that this is her attempt to keep control of something but unfortunately she isn't capable of doing this with her medication. I can live with the current insistence on wearing her slippers everywhere rather than shoes but clearly cannot allow her to poison herself.

She asks me all the time if there's anything she can do, so this morning I said 'Yes please! You could put the Dyson round the living room'. Once we'd established that it lives in the cupboard under the stairs not the pantry, we were away. It's a difficult line to walk between helping her to do something and taking over but after five minutes I thought it would be more effective if we plugged the thing in. Then after another couple suggested that she put the 'foot' down instead of pushing it around with the brushes roaring away in mid air. Ultimately it was a short-lived exercise due to aching arms and the admission that she'd never used the machine before because Dad always did it...

Wedding Blues

Phone rings.

M: Yes that will be lovely.

Me: What's that Mum?

M: It's Ladies' Club tonight. Mavis is picking me up at 7.

Me: Right ho, will make sure you've eaten before you go.

M: Oh but I can't go! I'll miss the wedding.

Things I say more than ten times a day (this week)

'They are coming to collect it on Tuesday'  (TV)

'He is a she' (dog)

'No thanks I don't like biscuits/drink coffee'

'It hasn't finished it's just the advert break'

'Don't feed the dog chocolate/custard creams/from your plate'

'It's just a cloud, the sun will be out again in a  minute'

'He isn't my husband' (neither of them!)

Sunday

Today has been both a really lovely day and a really hard one.

Ma has been a bit wobbly, both mentally and physically, which can result in trips or falls or repetitive questioning and being really very arsey about it when she does any of the above. However, we were invited out for lunch and had a really good time. H got to see Z who she meets whenever she's up here and has done since she was quite tiny. Mum thoroughly enjoyed lunch with her favourite friends (and some of my favourite people) who are obviously very forgiving about bizarre turns of conversation, interesting sartorial choices and odd behaviour plus I got time off cooking duties, which is always a pleasant change even though I do love to cook. We are now back and Ma is watching The Cube. I do wish she'd watch BBC though, every ad break completely confuses her, but other than that all is well (even though I've just had to be very firm again with her about feeding the dog fecking chocolate). Grumpy face.

The hard bit is purely mine own. It's been a bad pain day for me so I've struggled a little. I think I need to investigate the world of mattress toppers because I can't keep waking up feeling broken forever. And there's only so much Tramadol and Valium in the world.

Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Blackpool

Simon arrived this morning and we persuaded Ma to come out for a drive to Blackpool.

She was very tired after her trip to Devon midweek so was a bit iffy about going anywhere but seemed to emjoy herself even if she couldn't remember Simon's name and referred to him as 'this young man' or 'sir'!

Insisting on going in her purple slippers was a blessing in disguise and gave me the opportunity to talk her into getting replacement white shoes in M&S, indentical to her old ones but they look so much better.

She's going to try a chicken korma for the first time from the take-away tonight. Could be interesting...

Looking for Wishy Washy

Crikey! For someone who hates ironing this is a mammoth task. However, order is being restored. Just call me Widow Twankey. And keep your filthy thoughts to yourselves!

Is it wrong of me to sling out an entire drawerful of old tights? I don't think so, she rarely wears a skirt these days - unless it is over a pair of trousers, naturally, and there's at least 8 new pairs still in packets in the drawer. Plus old tights creep me out and make me shudder. I think there may have been some pop socks in there too :@  :@

I really want to wash her 'big coat'. It says on the label dry clean only but we all know that that can be a bit of a ruse. It's an M&S mac with a padded lining and a 'fur' lined hood. Surely it would be ok on a cool wash? And yes... I'll stop calling you Surely. 

Quiz question of the day: What is a reasonable number of bras to own?