Cleaning frenzy

My definition of "frenzy" has changed somewhat as I've become older, stiffer, less well.

Yesterday my brain decided, against advice from almost every other part of me,  that I needed to clean the kitchen.  This involved clearing the worktops, cleaning the worktop, cleaning the items, putting them back, and creating a pile of "I don't know what to do with these" in one place on the breakfast bar.  I also cleaned the windows, inside and out. 

In my less decrepit state it would have taken me at most 2 hours to achieve what actually took me nearer 5.  I gave up before I got to the stage where I needed to mop the floor.  I meant to do that later, but I'd had (more than) enough.    

The pile of stuff on the breakfast bar is still there, but it's smaller.  I binned some,  I put some in the boot of my car (charity shop), some needs DH's intervention, and some....I have no idea. I I might just put it on a tray and stick it temporarily underneath one of the units; we don't have plinths, it's easy, I've done this before.   

It's an attractive option because I've ordered  made to measure plinth pods for one run of units, so it could only be a short term fix.  I did, tentatively, pull out one of the trays from a previous cleanring session... and decided to put it back to deal with later.  I told myself it would all be easier when the plinth drawers are in, as some of those are designated for crap we don't know what to do with,

Today I'm thinking about moving on to the dining room,  but part of what is in junking up there is waiting for one of the plinth pods to arrive,   or for some Ikea bits to arrive,  or for DH to put some shelves in the Kallax unit I bought the other day so I can finish putting the sideboard contents away,

 Did I mention I got rid of my lovely Skovby sideboard and replaced it with a Kallax?

I used to have a 4x2 Kallax which worked well as a sideboard/storage facility.   When we extended the cat tree, the Kallax was too big, the next size down was too small,  so I replaced it with a lovely Skovby sideboard.   The sideboard was a proper, although compact, sideboard.   Inside, it wasn't quite as capacious or adaptable as Kallax,   but it looked so much better. Looked lovely. Gorgeous grain, full of character.   

Then, when looking at something for my Mum,  I saw that Ikea had started doing cat bed  Drona boxes (Kallax inserts).  I bought one for another Kallax unit I have , and I really liked it.

I had to order some stuff for my Mum (she is a Kallax convert now she has limited space), and on impulse I ordered arecently  released 3x2 Kallax for me.   I left it unopened for a while,  so I could see whether the moment passed.  

Surprisingly, it didn't.   So, we now have a Kallax unit in place.  Doesn't look anywhere near as good as the Skovby, but it is immensely practical - and it has a cat bed in it!

 

 

Skirting around the issue

I've been suffering from bloating, and it's been very painful.

 

I decided to make some skirts with bigger waistbands, to relieve the pressure on my abdomen.   It took me about a week to clear the breakfast bar,  clean it,  get out the cutting mat, get out the patterns and cutting tools,   and sort out the pattern  - I wanted to make a skirt from a woven fabric, like cotton, which is much cooler in the heatwave, and I wanted a full maxi skirt not one with a split.   I decided to try 5 out of 4's "Virginia Maxi".

 

5oo4 Virginia

Eventually, I managed to cut the skirt out, and to sew it up. I then considered whether to just do one of my normal yoga waistbands or whether to try and do something a bit better.  And I pondered on whether I should gather the skirt first, being as it's woven,  rather than using the stretchy waistband to gather while I sewed.

 

I used up all my available energy thinking about it, and my back was killing me,  so I just put everything in the spare bedroom until I'd recovered,

  

Eventually I really needed the new skirt - or the large waistband -   so I decided to just do the usual waistband routine.  It worked better than I expected. I'm really really happy with the end result.   I wanted to make another one but it needs wider fabric (because its quite gathered), and I couldn't easily find something suitable in my stash.  

 

A few days later, I used my go-to pattern (Pattern Emporium's Heartlight) for a stretch fabric maxi skirt and I cut out two skirts before my energy was sapped.  While I had the cutting mat out, I  used the remainder of the two pieces of fabric to precut some yoga waistbands for other skirts.   If the fabric has enough recovery, I use the same fabric to make the waistband as I use for the skirt.  Some fabric doesn't have good recovery which means the waistband gets looser and looser during wear, until the skirt slides off.  That's where these waistbands come in.    I've long given up tucking my top in so no one but me knows.

 

I can only find a photo of one of the Heartlight  skirts, I'll add the other later,
EDITED: took a photo of the other skirt

 

 

 

 

 

Chickens

Hazel, the hen we rehomed,  has been relentlessly bullying the two mophead Arauacana.

Its unnecessary.  They capitulated the day she was introduced, and have not tried to move her down the pecking order.  They keep out of her way.

And she seeks them out to bully them, ripping feathers out of their backs.  It's most unnecessary.

One of the mopheads, Olivia,  became unwell.   She was being bullied even more mercilessly by Hazel, and she was keeping herself apart from the flock.    I could smell something on her breath, and I could hear a faint rasp.  I couldn't see any obvious signs of "cheese" in her throat or nostrils,

I started her on Harkers, , which is a treatment for Canker.  Every day I put on chicken-nursing apron,  disposable gloves,  and go and catch her and take her to the catio where I could sit and feed her.  I added Critical Care powder to some wet food which was put in a paper muffin case, and used a disposable straw as a spoon.  I also added Critical Care to some water, mixed in eiter a jam jar or the cut-off-bottom of a milk cartonm, and droppered it in to her beak,  Each session was finished with NutriDrops, in a bottle now labelled with her name so it wouldn't be use for anyone else.   

When we were done, I'd put her back in the Run, far away from Hazel.    All the paraphernalia was disposed of each day, fresh paraphernalia the next day, and the apron was laundered each night. 

She improved a little after a couple of days, and I got some undyed maggots to feed her (it was too hot to get mealworms delivered) to encourage her to eat.

At the end of the course of  Harkers, the smell had gone, and she had definitely improved.  She was brighter, happier, and was eating normal food. I continued with the rest of the regime for a bit longer, adding in yoghurt to her diet. She started to crouch when I went to get her, something she rarely did befoore she was ill. 

She's still bullied by Hazel, but she's now back to being part of the flock. 

Sometimes she crouches for me, and I'll bring her back to the house and give her a treat (some sunflower seeds, or a bit of cucumber or tomato).

I'm really surprised at how well she is doing. 

 

Mum

It's been a busy, and mentally quite draining,  time with my Mum.

My brother and I took her for a weekend away to Llangollen.    Last year she said she wanted to see the aqueduct, that she'd wanted to go for as long as she could remember.    We couldn't take her back then because we were still sorting the house out, then she wasn't well enough, then it was the wrong time of year.

DB and I planned to take her at this particular time,  aswe always try and do something on dates that are significant to her.

It was a successful trip. We stayed in a lovely Air B&B.  As usual, I had searched for one with a downstairs bedroom and bathroom, and this one was very close to the aqueduct.   We stayed for 2 nights and visited the aqueduct twice. 

The first time, which was the late afternoon we arrived,  Mum wasn't up to walking over it, even with her lovely ByAcre.     The second time was the following morning, and we had booked a boat trip across.  There was also a last minute booking of a large group of German tourists, and that made the crossing even more fun as everyone was very jovial and jolly.  The weather was lovely. 

We had to wait a while to enter the aqueduct itself as there were a lot of boaters coming the other direction.  Some of the boaters were part of a canoe experience group.  These were the canoes like the Native American Indians use, rather than the kayak type.

When the first canoe came across,  one of the German tourists said to his companion, in German,  "Oh look, an indian boat" (like a native american indian boat).  More multi person canoes came through, and I had to chuckle when I saw one of them in particular -  it was steered by a chap  wearing a turban.  The tourists roared with laughter (at the coincidence of the man describing the boars as Indian Boats, and then having an Indian man in one), much to the bemusement of the rest of the  passengers. 

We went into Llangollen, bought some Oggies (welsh pasties) and some other bits for dinner, and had an ice cream.  Mum was shattered when we got "home".

The final day we had another quick look at the canal, and then headed back to Mum's "home", stopping to visit a particular Welsh flagship shop on the way.

It was a long day for DB and I. On top of the journey from Llangollen to Mum's home,  we then had another just under 4 hours to get home ourselves.

..... 

A couple of weeks later,  Mum  announced that she wanted to leave the Home and go and live on a residential retirement mobile home park.   She had found a site which had a plot for sale.  She wanted to watch the fishing boats come in and go out, she wanted to buy a scooter and scooter herself to the local shop to buy sweets.

She's been very happy at her residential home, and vigorously resisted our early attempts to get her to consider moving into sheltered accommodation (or to buy a small place, maybe even near us) instead.  Back then, this would have been a viable option.  Now time has moved on, and Mum has grown used to the convenience of being looked after.

We thought something must have happened at the Home to upset her.     It took a while to unpick what was going on and why she now wanted to move, and to work out what the root causes of  this decision were.    

Mum is perfectly compos mentis, and a grown woman,  so we want to support her in what she chooses to do.   Even if we think something is a bad idea,  we don't just dismiss it out of hand.  We have no vested interest in her staying in her current home,  apart from it being a really lovely place and by far the best home we've ever visited. 

We reassured her that if she wanted to move out of her current Home,  that was absolutely no problem.  She doesn't have to stay where she is.   

If she wanted to move  to another residential home, anywhere in the country,  that would be fine .  If it turned out it wasn't as good as the one she was in now, she could always move back.  

If she wanted to move into sheltered accommodation, truthfully  I'd have concerns about her ability to manage,  but we would support her - and if she found it too difficulty she could always move back, or into another Home.    

But her proposed movewas really cause for concern, partly because we thought she would struggle to physically manage but mainly because it would be difficult for her to just change her mind and move back should the need arise.

She tried to articulate what prompted her to want to leave,  and we talked about whether her proposed move would actually solve the issues she was experiencing.  

She could see why we had concerns about the mobile home site option,   but she still wanted to do it.  She agreed that doing a trial for a couple of weeks first would be a good idea. 

We took her to visit the site.  It was, indeed, a lovely site.  It wasn't quite as she expected, and I don't want to go into the details on a blog post.  There would be no scootering, and there was no local shop.  The local town was a bit further away than she remembered,  and she could see that she wouldn't be able to get herself there.    Mum could see that it wasn't going to be quite what she imagined, so we moved on to working out what we might be able to do about sheltered accommodation if she really wanted more independence.

While we were sitting in a traffic jam, waiting for the bin lorry to complete its round along the narrow street of the nearby town,  I asked a couple of unrelated questions,  and a whole lot more information was forthcoming.  We came up with some very workable suggestions, and she seemed happier.

I asked her if she had thought about moving rooms made a suggestion about moving rooms, and Mum told me she would like to, but there were no rooms available.  I pointed out that she lived in a retirement home and that, at some point, a room would be available.  She asked me to speak to the Home to see if she could go on a waiting list.  We also said that, in the meantime we'd buy her a second BAcre so she could have one upstairs and one downstairs, which would remove one of the problems she was experiencing

The Home were brilliant.   The end result was that DB and I were back for 2 days a couple of weeks later, decorating her new room and getting her moved in.   And the visit 2 weeks after that, was us bringing some additional Ikea furniture and doing a bit of rearranging for her. 

She's now very very happy, and has not mentioned moving out again.   

Not yet, anyway.  

 

 

 

 

Chaos

I kept starting and stopping writing a blog post -  life kept moving on.  It's been like trying to pin down a gas.

 I don't know if I can actually remember everything that has happened in the last month or so. I'm not sure I want to commit some of it to a blog.

Mum.  Weather.  Chickens.  Health. 

 I need to write some of it down, just for my own reference.