This time last year

This time last year Dad had been moved on to a ward.   Mum was still trying to get them to give a Creon tablet with the first mouthful of food, but they kept giving it to him at random times.

At this stage, we thought Dad would be OK.    We were looking at homes for Dad to be moved into, ideally one where Mum could move in as well.

Dad started to get a bit confused, and of course we wondered if he had a urinary infection.   Sometimes he seemed reasonably OK, other times he was not with us at all. Occasionally, he was delirious.

Mum was there almost every day 

Messaging apps are great at helping me see what was going on when.  The ups and downs are heartbreaking. 

What's most heartbreaking of all, is that we still believed Dad would be coming home

Christmas Eve

I'm knackered!

This morning, I made myself put up some of the house decorations.  Just a couple.

I added some more ornaments to the tree, including a second piece of knitted tinsel, this time in what I can only describe as a "Frozen" colour.   

I steeled myself to go to the greengrocers in a nearby small town to get some fruit and "salady bits" for the next couple of days.   Darling Uncle is staying, so it'll be a bit odd not having something like that to offer him.

The greengrocer was shut. All day. On the plus side, it wasn't that my dilly dallying had caused me to miss them.    I stood in the high street for a couple of seconds considering my options.   The other good greengrocer was some way away, and I suspected they might be shut by the time I got to them.  I considered just not bothering, but it seemed silly now I had got this far. 

I decided to try Waitrose.  I don't like supermarket fruit and veg very much; as they had run out of almost everything I'd planned to buy, it wasn't really a problem.    I got some grapes (reduced),  a lettuce for the Girls (reduced),  some tomatoes and a cucumber which I know is going to be disappointing. (DH grows cucumbers for me, and they are just amazing).    I saw a Dragon Fruit (or Dwagon Fwoot as I can't help calling it),  and bought it for my brother who would love it.

I bought a few other bits and pieces, and managed to stop myself abandoning my trolley and leaving the shop at a couple of points.   It wasn't as busy as I had feared,  but it was still a little overwhelming.

I saw that they had some fake wreaths in their gardening section. £35, with lights but undecorated.    I decided to buy one, as I realised the chance of me going to get a fresh one now were zero.  I consoled myself with the knowledge that I could keep it "in stock" as an "emergency wreath" should I be in this position again.

To my absolute delight, it was reduced to £10!  What a bargain!

I got home jut as my DB arrived, and I couldn't wait to give him his Christmas Card ("Get Dressed Ye Merry Gentle Men") and the Dwagon Fwoot.     He laughed with genuine pleasure at both, and we spent a couple of minutes reliving those particulr Cabin Pressure episodes.

I then set about decorating the wreath, and eventually got it hung up.    

 I did some more lights,and found some helpful instructions from myself 2 years ago suggesting where to hang certain items. As a result I decorated the bannister and put some lights in a wind chime, and I'm really pleased with the latter (pic doesn't do it justice). 

I  put batteries in the candles,  and then decided that enough was, for this year, enough.

 DH had made some cheese and was playing around with flavourings, so I think we will have that for supper.  Pasta and tomarto sauce for dinner.  

I've just got to put the decorating boxes away, and do some clearing of surfaces.    I think it will be sweeping stuff into a box, at this stage.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Knitting tinsel

I'm not exactly feeling the Christmas Spirit, but I am trying.

The tree has been up since the 19th.  It's the artificial, pre-lit, one I bought in 2022.  After this Christmas, it has paid for itself, and I'll think about what to do next year.    It's a really stunning tree,   and it is so much less hassle...  but I miss the smell and feel of a real tree.   The scentcicles don't do it for me.

I've been decorating the tree for the last few days.  A task I'd previously been able to do in an evening (including decorating the rest of the downstairs) is now spread over several days.

I had a hankering for something peacocky on the tree.  I bought some handmade baubles, which were lovely.   I bought a peacock coloured feather boa, which is lovely too (although not really the thing for a tree).     I picked through my box of baubles, adding the ones representing the hens and cats.  I added twinkly ornaments.  It's getting there.

An old friend sent me the most gorgeous Christmas card with a peacock on!    It encouraged me to look, unsuccessfully,  for more peacocky things for my tree.

Looking on the John Lewis website for inspiration, I saw some Winnie the Pooh (WTP) baubles.  I initially scrolled past them as they were Disney branded, and I loathe Disney's WTP.  However,  I saw that Eeyore looked like the real Eeyore, and I went back.   On impulse, I bought them.  I collected them from my local Waitrose yesterday, and added them to the tree.    

I'd also ordered some yarn from a lovely knitting shop (The Knitting Network) which arrived super quickly.   It was "tinsel wool" and I'd had the idea of putting it round the tree.     Shelby was besideherself, and started trying to chew the yarn immediately, so that was the end of that. 

I had a go at making pompoms out of it, using a Clover Pom Pom maker I'd ordered at the same time.  It wasn't a success, a combination of operator failure and unsuitable yarn, I think.  I decided to implement the other idea i'd had: i was going to knit some tinsel.

My knitting ability is rudimentary at best.  I've been able to form standard knitting stitches since I was a small child.   Until last year, I hadn't learned to cast on or off,  I hadn't learned to purle,  and I'd never mastered the art of keeping the same number of stitches throughout.         Last year I made ap point of dealing with learning the casting on/off and purling, and I improved at keeping the same number of stitches.  Improved as in, I didn't add or lose quite as many as I had previously.

I didn't think it would matter if I was just knitting a length of tinsel.    So, last night, whilst watching episodes 3 and 4 of The Ink Black Heart I had a go.     I started with 5 stitches on a pair of large needles, which was ambitious as the yarn was very fine.    Throughout my knitting journey, it varied between 4 and about 8 stitches,  but the tinsellisation made it almost unnoticeable.

I knitted, and knitted and knitted.  Shelby,  our wool loving cat,  was in a frenzy of anticipation.   I had to keep hiding the ball of yarn, as she kept helping herself.  At one point, she ran off with it, like the Andrex Puppy.     It made me chuckle,  but I had to stop her because she does eat the darned stuff.  We'd once had to pull a whole load of wool out of her throat and stomach, and I don't ever want to have to do that again.

Eventually it was done, and it was quite effective.  The yarn isn't called Tinsel for nothing.   I cast off and proudly hung it on the tree.

It wasn't great.

The tinsel  was fab,  but the peacock blue thing isn't working at all well, and I am regretting it a lot, It just doesn't work with the particular shade of  green of the artificial tree.

The tree looks a bit of a mess really.  

Never mind, it's only for a few days.

On the plus side, I ordered some reduced price  Really Useful Boxes so that I could arrange my Christmas Tree ornaments by colour when I put them away.     You may be wondering why that's a plus?

It's a plus because it's the first time in a few years that I've been interested enough in the whole thing to  consider doing something like that at all.

 

 

A year ago

December 9th 2023, my Dad went in to hospital because my Mum had done a test and found that his insulin levels had gone through the roof.

They lived in a smallholding in a very rural part of Wales, and Mum had to get an ambulance for him.  He was stuck in the ambulance for hours, and then he was in a corridor in A&E for several days.

The hospital staff were lovely, but couldn't seem to understand that his  pancreas didn't work, and he needed to take specific medication immediately before eating, otherwise his body couldn't digest the food.    Mum kept telling them, and they just weren't listening.  Her GP said he would contact them tio let them know that the timing of the medication was crucial to its effectiveness.

My brother and I, and my Uncle, visited.  It was a trip we'd planned before Dad became unwell.  Darling Uncle (DU) hadn't been for a long time, and it was going to be a lovely pre Christmas celebration. 

It didn't work out that way.

He had been inhospital for about 4 days by the time we arrived.  We were shocked at how much he had declined.  He was really unwell, and had become vague and not completely with it.   He has a history of suffering hospital acquired dementia, and we thought that was the case.

We were particularly shocked that A&E were talking about discharging him.  The original problem was now under control, as much as it could be,  and they wanted the bed.      There was no way that Mum could cope with Dad in the state he was in. 

I had a conversation with one of the Nurses and said that there was no way Mum could have him home like that.  I said they needed to come and look at my parents house before they discharged him".  It was horrendous.

Another Nurse took me to one side and told me quietly that I needed to stand my ground.

Mum realised that Dad was going to have to go into a home, so we started looking at options.

The days dragged on, and Dad got worse, and worse.

Mum was no longer fit to drive to see him, so her nearest neighbour took her to the hospital most days. 

Mum got a big shock on the 20th December, They told her Dad was being discharged the following day.  He was a physical and mental wreck. Mum was herself so frail at this point that she  physically incapable of doing anything to care for him at this point. 

We were relieved to hear that Social Services were away now until January 3rd, so we assumed that he would not be sent home before then.

He was  instead moved onto a ward in the hospital.

 

Dopey

I'm back to my Mum's this weekend and I haven't finished emptying the crates from last weekend yet. 

I have sold quite a few things, some somewhat unexpectedly.   

I've also been moving advertised stuff into the Summerhouse for safety (and my sanity), and I've been sorting and resorting my packaging supplies.

I had some feedback on ebay which made me chuckle.  It was complimenting me on the strength of my packaging.  The buyer was lovely, and we had exchanged a few messages through the process.

I didn't sleep at all well last night, and I'm not sure why.  I'm tried this morning, and I had a long list of Ps to do

*Puddings - wrap
*Package and post sales from last night
*Prep marmalade
*Pay in coins to Mum's account
*unPack the next crate
*Photograph items and prep listings
*Put washing on
*Pile up stuff from airers ready to press

I can't remember the rest of the list now.

I started working through it.    Eventually, after abortive 3 trips upstairs to get the packaging for the puddings, I cleared and cleaned a worktop so I could do the final wrapping of the puddings.  I made only two puddings this year, one for us and one for my BFF.   I'd started them on Tuesday afternoong, potted and steamed them on Wednesday, and cleaned the basins and replaced the baking parchment and foil tops yesterday.    The next step is to wrap them in pretty transparent film.   

I did my friend's pudding first. Huuuge sgeet of film. Pyudding upside down,  TGather the film around it, make a flourish with eth film, tie it off.  Lovely! I put it on the side to take round to her tomorrow.

I cut the next piece of film from the huge roll. I pur our Pudding top down., gathered the film around the basin, flourish tied. I put it in the cupboard.  

I then took the roll of film back upstairs to where it lives for the other 364 days of the year.  When I came down, I saw our pudding on the side, unwrapped.

I was a little puzzled.  I had definitely wrapped two puddings.  t was definitelyours becauise it was in a china basin

I had made only 2 large puddings (I made a small one as a tester, which I've eaten. God I love Delia's recipe).

I went to the cupboard and got out our pudding.  Except it wasn't our pudding.   It was in a plastic bowl and was my BFF's pudding.  With 2 layers of very fancy film wrapping.

How did I not see that when I was doing it?!

Groupie

The range of things I have been selling has resulted in me being a member of an enormously eclectic range of Facebook groups.  Woodworking. Scalextric. Farming. Antiques. China. Specialist china. Kitchenware, pre decimal coins... and many other specific ones

It's been eye opening and interesting

I need to do a bit of an audit I think, as I'm sure there are quite a few I no longer need.

 

Inconsiderate

There are some lovely people out there, and some really inconsiderate **bleep**s.

I've had many rounds of selling my parents vast and eclectic collections of china.     One particularly huge set was advertised, and a buyer came forward.  She lived near my home, so I said I could bring the china the 200 miles if she definitely wanted it.

She did.

I messaged her the day before I was leaving to say I was going to start packing the china,  that it was a lot of stuff, and if she had changed her mind to please let me know before I wrapped it.

She wanted it.

I messaged her the following day to say that I was now packing the car, and this was a chance to say she had changed her mind.

She still wanted it.

I got it home, I unpacked it all, put it all through the dishwasher (which took many loads to do), and then I messaged her about coming to collect it.

She demanded one of my other large sets also be included in the price.

I declined and explained that we were selling to fund my Mum's care.

She said she didn't want it after all.

I said:  "no problem", and left it at that.    I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of letting her know just how much she had inconvenienced me.  

There was a plus side to this.   I later sold the china to a lovely local lady, who had come to buy some other china that I had advertised.  

......

We have had car loads and car loads of clothes to dispose of. Chartity shops,  Salvation Army banks,  bags for rags.  It's left us with mountains of hangers.

The first many boxes just went to the tip, each time we got rid of the clothes that had hung on them.We had too much to do to worry about finding new homes for hangers.

After emptying my parents bedroom,  we had two final boxes and I advertised on freebie pages.  A chap local to me wanted them, and then someone else also wanted them.   I told the second person I had plenty, and said when I'd be bringing them home.

I brought the two  boxes of hangers, organised by shape and size,  home, foregoing car space that could have been used for something else.

The first person changed the collection date twice , and then finally said he couldn't come. 

The second person ghosted me.

The boxes have been occupying a large part of my kitchen floor and I re-offered them on a local Facebook group. .  A lady came, but she refused to take a whole box, she just wanted to pick out a few.  I asked her if she could please just take the box, and she declined as she would then have to get rid of the excess herself.   Zero empathy.

.........

I've found the charity shops quite draining to deal with.

Recently we took a car load of bric a brac and gave it to a local bric a brac type place because I just couldn't face going in to the charity shops again.  It was a much more pleasant experience, the chap was genuinely pleased.  We ended up taking loads of stuff to him, and it was a much happier experience.

 

We did still take stuff to the charity shops as well.  

 ..........

And sometimes people are lovely.  Many people have been over the moon with their purchases, and that makes it worthwhile.

Every time I come back from my parents with crates of stuff to deal with.  I spend many days a fortnight cleaning, sorting, photographing, listing, answering queries,  packaging, posting.    A local lovely lady provides me with some superb empty boxes, small enough on one dimension to go Small Parcel, but big enough and rigid enough to be fantastic.  

I've become a dab hand with my glue gun turning these boxes into "double walled" safety boxes,  often multi-storey.     My husband chuckles and shakes his head when he sees me with Glen the Gluegun.   He chuckled even more when he read some of the feedback.

 

 ............