The New Wheels Tuesday

Posted on October 16, 2024 by thepogblog

Mum has new wheels!

Mum has been getting more wobbly and much faster to tire in the last few weeks so Sister 2 took the initiative and ordered a wheelchair.  Which got lost in transit so she ordered another.  And this Tuesday was the first time it was dry enough for an expedition, and I was very excited.  Party because I wouldn’t have the worry of will we / wont we get back from the park without me having to piggy back Mum and partly because if she enjoyed it, it opens up a whole heap of places (and not really just that – right now she can only manage one shop in town.  With a chair she can be taken  to every shop in Bumpkinsville should she want.)

So I had great hopes. Although I should have probably recognised my wheelchair limitations after the incident at the hospital the other week…  Now I know:

  • Not all wheelchairs have a brake that you can put on and leave on.  This makes it slightly tricky to get a wobbly person sitting in it unless it’s backed up against a wall or you are ready to do an impressive amount of contortions to lower them in while simultaneously stopping the chair from rolling backwards
  • You do not attempt to push a wheelchair with a cocker spaniel attached to one of the handles with an extendable lead on a road with no pavements (luckily I took the other lead too which worked great…on the way back)
  • Even roads that look flat are curve-y at the edges
  • Its really easy to steer a wheelchair into the curve-y edged bit
  • It is less easy to steer a wheel chair out of the curve-y edged bit
  • It is practically impossible to open a gate on a spring and push a wheelchair through it before it pings back on you
  • It is very possible to get wheel chair wheels stuck in mud
  • It is surprisingly hard to extract wheelchair wheels from mud when the wheelchair contains a Mummy W.

BUT:

Percy worked out how to make this into a ball throwing opportunity by dropping the ball directly in Mum’s lap:

AND:

Mum mostly liked the expedition!  And when I took her to meet a friend for lunch, the friend was singing the praises of wheelchairs and mobility scooters as they gave her late husband so much freedom (while the theory of a mobility scooter is great; I’m not sure anyone is that brave when it comes to Mum), so she got a bit more enthusiastic then too.

So we had that success.

And we had another in the shape of Jelly Drops:

Mum is less than brilliant at drinking fluids however often she is reminded / asked / given a full glass of something and Sister 1 thinks that it could be contributing her current levels of confusion. Jelly drops are recommended for exactly this circumstance by the Alzheimers Society so we got her some and (Great Floof!), she seems to like them – and it was a lot easier to get her to eat three while I was there than it would have been to get three glasses of water down her.  So we’ll see if regularly having them makes any difference.

And after the sweets, a shower, a hair wash and dry, and a spin in the new wheels, Mum went for lunch with a friend she went to school with while I went to Tesco.  And I think it’s safe to say that was probably enough for one day (for both of us, if we’re being honest 😉).  We got home and she fell asleep on the sofa in minutes.

When I left she work up briefly and asked ‘You wont be long, will you?’.

No, Mummy W; I’ll be back next week for another spin in the chair (and the start of a secret plan that we’ve put in place.)

And here’s a Tuesday TV for you.  I particularly liked Mum’s words of Wisdom this week 😉

Posted in dementia, family, looking after Mum, memory, stroke, Tuesday, Tuesday TV | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The confusing Tuesday

Posted on October 10, 2024 by thepogblog

It felt like Mum had disappeared a bit more this week.

There’s usually something on the list in Tesco that she can spot – orange juice is always a safe bet to say ‘could you just go and grab two cartons of your orange juice while I find the mushrooms?’ and she usually toddles off with the trolley and comes back with totally the wrong number, but the right cartons.  This week we stood in the aisle next to the orange juice and I asked Mum to grab a carton, but she couldn’t find it.

Her legs got tired too, and I had visions of having to pop her in the trolley to get her back to the car.  Luckily the cashier she likes was there and things perked up a bit at that point.

And when we took Percy out, she perked up a lot, even if she wasn’t making very much sense with me (she makes a lot more sense when she is just chatting to Percy!).  Back at home after a hair wash, drying, and Dad getting confused between putting a watch on and putting the washing on, there was a bit of knitting fixing required and then surprise (again) when I told Mum she’d already made lots of squares.  When I showed them to her, there was even more.  So I think I need to get a wriggle on with sewing it all together – maybe seeing that will help embed it….who knows?

🙂

 

 

Posted in dementia, looking after Mum, memory, stroke, Tuesday, Tuesday blanket, Tuesday TV | Leave a comment

Goodnight, Norman

Posted on October 4, 2024 by thepogblog

Dear Norman,

I was going to say that you have been my faithful furball for over fourteen years, but actually, ‘faithful’ is not entirely accurate.  ‘Indifferent’ is probably closer to the truth.

We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we? Living in Pog Towers with those terrible neighbours next door who were always shouting, your brother Charlie disappearing on us forever, good times, bad times and, wool…so much wool.  I think you loved my crochet as much as I did – you were often tangling up balls or capturing the moving thread, or just sitting on the side of the chair, snoozing next to me.

You’ve never been a lap cat.  When it was bed time though, you used to climb on top of the wardrobe and watch me go to sleep.  When you thought I’d drifted off you’d jump down, zoom out through the cat flap and make the most of the night.  I took that as a sign of your love.

And if gifts are a sign of love, you nailed that too.  I’ve had rats, mice (dead, alive and dismembered), frogs (alive), slowworms (both.  Do you know how hard it is to catch a live slow worm without claws, Norms?) a frog, birds…. Do you remember that magpie you set free in the conservatory?  That was a fun few hours.

And the pigeon that you stunned, brought in, sat with it between your paws and de-feathered while looking at me with a ‘what are you going to do about it?’ gleam in your eye.  I felt so guilty that I didn’t wrestle it off you sooner and put it out of its misery; instead, I panicked a bit, wrapped it in a tea towel and threw it half dead over the back fence.  I apologised to that pigeon and promised that I’d never be such a coward again.

You heard, didn’t you?  Because I think it was only a week or so later that you did almost the exact same thing again early one morning.  And this time I had no choice; I’d promised.  I got a carrier bag, removed the partially dead pigeon from your grasp and…. wondered what the hell to do next – I walked down our teeny tiny garden – in PJs, dressing gown and orange crocs – and found a longish lump of wood behind the shed.  I took a deep breath and hit the pigeon, inside the bag on the ground as hard as I could.  The lump of wood splintered and snapped in two.  I was pretty sure the bird was still alive.  In desperation and with no other options, I repeatedly swung the bag of mostly dead pigeon at the fence, hoping that each thud had killed it but not wanting to stop in case it was still alive and suffering.  It was horrible.  I felt sick. I really hope none of the neighbours were looking.  I can only assume they weren’t as presumably they’d have called someone…the police?  The RSPCA?  A doctor?

You also used to bring me human food: cooked sausages, chicken breasts, and one Christmas day morning, your pièce de résistance:  A raw salmon fillet.  Unlike the other poor animals, there was never so much as a tooth mark on these.  It was as though you really did intend for them to be mine.

When I sold Pog Towers we moved in with Mum and Dad – only for a few weeks but it was slightly chaotic:  you, me and your litter box in a tiny single room, having to shut the front and back doors so fast in case you escaped onto the busy road just outside.  Attempting to put you on a lead so you could explore safely.  Note to self:  Cats and leads are not a good combination…

Driving you to Mum and Dads caused you so much anguish that I dreaded driving you over an hour away to our next house so I got drugs. For you, although I probably could have done with them too.  We (You) tried them out and the drugs did work…but only once, it turned out.  The trip to our new place was filled with your irate screeching.  So it’s a good job we were there quite a few months.  I worked from home a lot there.  You sat or slept near me at my desk a lot of that time.  You weren’t keen on Mr R going to London, so every time he laid out his shirt in preparation, you’d lie down on it and cover it with fur.  One time you got in the wardrobe and clawed all his shirts into an unwearable state. All of them 🤦🏼‍♀️

We moved again to our forever house and I think you’ve loved it here.  We have a big garden and you’ve often helped me in that.  You’ve had more space than we ever had before and an upstairs, which was something new too.  When Percy came along – chosen specifically because I thought a black puppy that was smaller than you would be acceptable, and you might even be friends – you moved upstairs (it wasn’t acceptable, it turned out).  That was yours, and we respected that by putting in a stair gate.

But things have changed again.  A few months ago I couldn’t get you to eat, then you turned into some sort of furry locust – begging for food, swiping for food, demanding it.  And not just yours – ours and Percy’s too.  And you stopped going upstairs.  Everywhere has been ‘yours’ and Percy could expect a swipe and a hiss if he came anywhere close.

I’ve never had a cat stick around with me as long as you, so I’ve been expecting no more Norman for a while.  Has your change in behaviour been one last hoorah?  You’ve been looking a bit old and worn out…but so am I.

The vet gave me a chart so I could monitor your quality of life.  I’ve been saying a while it’s not fair that we can put animals out of their suffering but not humans.  But it is such a hard decision to make when it’s not entirely clear cut.  I’d never be able to make that call for a human.  I wasn’t even that great when it came to pigeons…

But Norman, I’d hoped I’d just know when it was time for you.  I made ‘the’ appointment two days ago but my head was a mess because I wasn’t entirely sure it was right; your quality of life had significantly declined, but there was still a little there, I thought.  All day you stuck to me like glue.  You spent more time with me than you have over the last six months put together. I wondered if you were trying to tell me I was making a mistake and pleading for me to change my mind and cancel the appointment.  Someone wise suggested that you might be trying to thank me though, and being with me was your way to do that.

And yesterday you suddenly became properly poorly – crying, being sick and not eating.  I gave up putting the sofa back together or putting away the cleaning stuff.

So today we will do that hardest final trip.  I’ve been and got you drugs so you will start drifting on your own Norman sized cloud before we even get to the vet so it’s as peaceful and comfortable as it can possibly be.  I asked the receptionist if they would prescribe one for me too; they suggested we share.

I won’t share it though, Norms.  Because you’ve been there for me – admittedly at a significant distance, but you have been there.  And I want to be there for you too, my indifferent, independent but secretly loving feline fur ball.  And I will.  I’ll be stroking you just how you like it as I get to say goodnight one last time.  Sleep well, my Norman.

Love always,

Mum. x

Posted in animals, cats, Pog Life | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The ‘I might go rusty’ Tuesday

Posted on October 3, 2024 by thepogblog

The amazing news this Tuesday is that when I arrived, Dad was being seen by a respiratory nurse.

I didn’t know there was such a thing for people with COPD, but when Dad got really rather poorly in around July, I called his GP.  ‘You need to call the hospice’, they said. ‘He’s too poorly for us to help.’

I called the hospice. ‘You need to call his respiratory nurse’ they said ‘This is symptom management, not actual end of life stuff’.

‘What’s a respiratory nurse and how do I get one for Dad?’ I asked  ‘He’ll have been assigned one when he was diagnosed, 20 years ago’ they said.

Only he wasn’t.  Or at any point since then.  The hospice did then call Dad and offer to visit to check on him after that, while I set out on a mission to locate this missing piece in Dads’ puzzle.

And that actually happened in only three months.  And I don’t know at this point if three months is good or if I am just totally demoralised by the amount of shouting and chasing you need to do to get anything to happen and my expectations are stupidly low.

Anyway, this nurse was brilliant – she told Dad his inhalers are old fashioned and she will request he is prescribed a shiny new one.  She was impressed by his oxygen saturation levels and then stunned by them when she did a lung functionality test.  ‘This is bad.  Very bad.’ she said.  But then brightened as she told us most patients with lungs as unhappy as Dad’s would be horizontal and on oxygen – Dad’s not even allowed oxygen due to his amazing levels.  Which is…kind of a good thing…I guess.  Swings and roundabouts and all that.

Mum, on the other hand was not so good.  She was rather grumpy about everything, struggled to steer the trolley, even at a snails pace at Tesco and there were very few things that she can find on the shelves even if we are standing in front of them.  She’s also started a fixation on when she is seeing specific people and asked about 332412347 times an hour when they will meet.  And ‘I wont get cakes because I’ll have one later with her.’ ‘No Mum, you’re meeting in two days so you can have a cake today if you want’ and ‘I wont have a coffee because she will be here soon’, ‘Again: Two days…’ (I did start off with nicer ways of explaining it but LORDY.  It.  Didn’t.  Stop. ).  Dad’s had that for a week.,  She met the particular friend this morning and I sent Dad a message to say at least there would be no more questions on the topic…but she’s moved on to when something else is happening now.  Poor Dad.

She couldn’t manage to walk to the park so I drove us…but it started to rain shortly afterwards and she wanted to go home.  There was a chance of rust after all 🤦🏼‍♀️

But it wasn’t terrible and Dad having his nurse is great news, so it wasn’t bad for a Tuesday 🙂

PS: Tank you very much to whoever sent me an article on dementia taken from the National Trust Magazine.  I’d love to get mum to the Forget me Not cafe at Knole – I just need to work out a very stealthy way to do it as she point blank refuses to go to that sort of thing…  I don’t know who you are as you didn’t put your name and there was no postmark on the envelope, but I am guessing you are here because of the content!

 

 

 

 

Posted in COPD, dementia, family, looking after Mum, memory, stroke, Tuesday, Tuesday TV | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The nice doctor and the people that chat to me at night Friday

Posted on September 28, 2024 by thepogblog

This week – Friday being the new Tuesday, the following happened:

  • It took me two hours (rather that one) to get to the M25 junction nearest Mum and Dads

That left me with almost minus time to get Tesco done and pick up their tablets from their doctors surgery (both in different directions).  I like a challenge though so:

  • I managed Tesco (getting out of the car > shopping a pretty giant list sent by Dad> paying > getting back to the car> returning the trolley > getting back to the car again) in 13 minutes flat.  Some people laugh, some people rushed to get out my way.  I felt like I was on Supermarket Sweep 😁
  • I got to the surgery, met the loveliest receptionist ever, and juggled boxes and bags back to the car
  • Got to Mum and Dads…earlier than anticipated (obviously).
  • Asked Mum how the shopping for her long sleeved tops that she wanted had gone with Sister 2.  Mum said she’d bough trousers instead.  Dad told me she’d bought trainers and no trousers.
  • I suggested Mum put on her new trainers read for our expedition to the hospital.  Mum tried putting on the trainers I’d bought up to give to Sister 1.
  • She was unsure about wearing her new trainers to teh hospital incase they got dirty.  I assured here there wasn’t likely to be too much mud in the corridors.
  • Drove to the hospital and had a ‘discussion’ as to why Mum keeps deciding not to see the people who have made plans to see her.  She stopped talking to me
  • Mum found the Haribo and forgot she wasn’t talking to me in her excitement to open them.
  • Mum insisted she could walk to wherever we were going in the hospital.  It was touch and go.
  • Saw the doctor.  Minimal bamboozling took place and no more diagnosis.
  • Mum decided he was much nicer than the last Doctor we saw.  He was the last doctor we saw.

And most interestingly, the doctor had asked us to keep notes on Mums progress over the last four weeks.  When I arrived I added dads to mine and noticed Mums been telling him that she talks to people at night in her bedroom.  I asked her about it when we were struck in traffic driving her home.  It’s in Tuesday TV.  I don’t know what to make of it…   🤷‍♀️. Mum seems to appreciate ‘them’ though so I guess that’s all that matters

(Sorry about  the camera angle; it was the only place I could prop it for that bit)

Posted in dementia, family, looking after Mum, memory, stroke, Tuesday TV | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Training – from two paws to four paws

Posted on September 26, 2024 by thepogblog

This week, Friday is the new Tuesday because we swapped days as tomorrow Mum has a hospital appointment with the very bamboozling doctor with all the long words and lots of diagnosis’s.  I’m hoping we don’t come away with any more this time (epilepsy and a heart condition are more than enough to add to her ever growing medical notes), and that maybe if I really concentrate I’ll understand more of what he tells me…  I’ll let you know, but please cross your fingers and send me brain cells at 5pm on Friday. 🫰🏼

So, instead, on Tuesday I got ahead with work, did my usual evening training class and…then took an online dog behaviour / training class.

Because the vet suggested at our last visit that as well as being a little tubby, Percy may have a few ‘issues’ and might do well to see a behaviouralist.  And like many, many parents being given feedback that the apple of their eye is not in fact perfect, I got a bit grumpy inside.  Then decided I absolutely should do what I needed to help him.  So looked up the vet recommended people and wondered if a second mortgage was an option.  Then looked at other local referrals and discovered that – like therapists – dog trainers and behaviouralists are not a regulated role and anyone can set themselves up as one.  And every one I found, there seemed to be some issue with.

And I guess because big brother knows everything and could see that I was looking up these things, facebook threw up an invite to a free online seminar with a dog person I’ve been following in instagram who does seem to talk a bit of sense.  I signed up and he talked more sense – some of which I knew and some of which I didn’t.

So now I am attempting more stimulation, less arousal and more outlets.  I think.  And to do that we’ve been doing lessons.  We have a fair way to go with the kisses:

And I need to find some pots Percy can pick up to do this one properly:

And so far the only difference has been the fact that for the first time Percy decided to start humping a lady dog while we were out yesterday, resulting in my running at (my) full speed across a field shouting, “GET OFF HER NOW’.  But it’s only been two days and hopefully he’ll become more chilled out rather than some sort of canine Romeo…

…And it’s made a change from trying to re-teach Mum to knit or make a cup of coffee 🙂

And in Norman news, he is now also referred to as ‘The Furry Locust’ on account of his sudden need to eat ALL the food.  Not only is he demanding two breakfasts these days, but he’s started breaking into Percy’s defrosting dinner as a midnight snack if we forget to hide it. And now he’s taken to watching me eat, ready to pounce the second my guard is down …

Animals and Mummy W’s…life would be very boring without them 🙂

Posted in animals, cats, dogs, looking after Mum | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A letter to Stepson 1 on dating and adulting

Posted on September 20, 2024 by thepogblog

Stepson 1:

Tomorrow Dad, your Mum and Stepson 2 will be driving you to university to properly start grown up life.  I’m a little concerned about this, as there still seem to be issues with knowing how to slice an onion despite a lot of cooking lessons here….

We could use that as an analogy for life, but let’s work with the literal instead:  Onions are not that important in the grand scheme of things.

Some things are though, which takes us to the conversation we had at the weekend when I realised, (after a couple of glasses of wine, I admit), that I have some seriously useful information to impart.  Namely: how to not repel lovely ladies.

I suggested I wrote these tips down for you.  You said you thought that would be very useful.

So, based on nothing more than my own personal experience (which while not vast, does seem to have included a significant number of disastrous dates) I suggest the following:

  • Never eat raw red onions or garlic before going out anywhere you will be talking and trying to make a good impression
  • Never eat stinky fish before going out (tuna is ok but all others: uh – uh)
  • Always shower and wash your hair before going out; especially if you’ve been cooking
  • And put on clean clothes afterwards
  • Clean your teeth and floss
  • If on an actual date, do not have food with onion or garlic unless she does, in which case have onion and garlic or she will be the stinky breathed one. (It’s safest to order the same thing because of this)
  • Have a variety of things to talk about; try to avoid monologues about the best days of your life being at school (in intricate detail including teachers names, friends names and how clever you are, etc), the number of different flours you have tested in making sourdough bread including intricate detail of the entire process, or the number of Eastern European countries where you have slept with prostitutes. Ok, I realise none of these are relevant to you, but they really are all topics covered by people I’ve been on dates with.  By default, the fact that these are not relevant to you demonstrates that you are way more interesting than some people out there 🙂

In addition to the ‘don’ts’ I’ve provided you with a small ‘do’ pack.  This contains:

  • Floss.  Floss before going out
  • Mints: Eat one just before you arrive so you are truly minty fresh
  • Aftershave:  Go easy on this one – Dad and I tested it out and it’s quite…potent.  So go for ‘less is more’ – maybe do a couple of squirts and walk into the mist rather than spraying direct on your skin.

Oh, and DO have a haircut every four weeks unless the object of your affection has a penchant for toilet brushes.  Your hair is very toilet brush like unique , and either you need to keep it in check or do some styling…with wax or something.

And here ends the lesson.

I’ve put a few extra bits in your bags too – a freshly made chocolate cake to pop in your kitchen to make a good impression with the others you’re sharing with.  And a bottle of vodka in case the cake doesn’t cut it.  There’s the supernoodles and pasta packets so you don’t have to remember how to cut an onion in freshers week, and a Frey Bentos chicken pie, because are you even a student if you don’t eat Frey Bentos pies? And I know it wouldn’t cross your mind to take something like this, but think you’ll like it: I’ve printed and framed a few photos I thought you’d like – one of you, Stepson 2, Dad and Me, another of you, Stepson 2, Mum and her partner, and one of Percy – your furry brother.

I know this going away and doing the adulting thing is a bit scary, but I also know that you’ll do great.  Mostly.  Just follow the cook book, follow the lovely lady guide and if you don’t know how to cut up an onion (or anything else for that matter), take a deep breath and engage your brain (this is really key….please remember to engage that brain on the common sense side as well as the complicated numbers stuff you’re so good at), cross your fingers and do what you think will work best.  Mostly, it will work out fine.

Because that’s really all adulting is: crossing your fingers, doing the thing, and hoping it will work out fine.

You’ve got this:  Go and adult and be amazing.

Posted in Dating, family, muddled life guide | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The ‘I didn’t even need Mum for the chaos this week’ Tuesday

Posted on September 19, 2024 by thepogblog

You know how I said last Tuesday that Tesco lacked some of the usual excitement on my own?  Well, I really need to watch what I say.

I left home a tiny bit late as I had quite a few work bits that couldn’t wait until the evening, and (possibly) as a result, the M25 was more chaotic than usual which meant I got to Tesco a bit late.  And as I got out the car I realised I’d left all my shopping bags at home, so I went through the car boot where I had a few odd ones with random stuff in them or disabilities like one handle and one with a slight hole in the bottom that I’d never got around to throwing out.  I chucked all the bits in the bags loose into the boot and set off on my solo expedition.

It turns out that  just a little while later than we usually go, pretty much all Bumpkinsville residents over the age of 70 descend on Tesco for a group outing; it was carnage.

The good news is that in your late 40’s, without small children or older parents  to manoeuvre, you become almost invisible and while that means people don’t even think of moving out of your way as they put the world to rights with Betty from Bingo in the milk and cheese aisle, you can zoom around people too.

And zoom I did.  Until I reached the tills where all these older people, who all presumably eat like locusts, were queued to with trolleys piled high, biscuits – and a surprising amount of wine –  balancing precariously.  As we know from experience, the lovely cashiers take their time with the oldies and have a lovely chat with them as they scan, so with four trolleys queueing at each till, the only option was the self service.  A decision that everyone under the age of 60 in the shop had taken.  So I got in line and snapped a photo to send to dad with an apology that I was going to be late:

And when it did get to me, I put through my shopping, paid and packed, then put through Mum and Dads shopping, paid and packed, and then I put through the rest of my stuff that had been under Mum and Dads stuff and paid and packed that and while I was doing that, feeling rather frazzled someone walked up to me and said:

‘Are you Helen?’ Then helpfully answered themselves before I could with ‘You are Helen’.

I don’t know about you, but if I see someone out of their usual context I have no hope of recognising them, even less of remembering their name, so I was flummoxed as to who they were and how they knew me.  It turned out it was the Mum of a client, who is (like most of my clients and their parents) very lovely.  Which was lucky as I was not portraying ‘therapist at leisure’ vibes. More ‘Bordering on out of control and ready to open the wine I’ve just put through the till…finally’ vibes.  She didn’t seem to judge me though, in fact she told me she’d been recommending my services to friends.  So I pulled myself together, attempted to look like the sort of person you’d continue to recommend to your friends despite meeting them in Tesco with three lots of shopping a somewhat frazzled expression, and one eye on the wine, and said thank you and goodbye.  I followed a little behind her as I pushed the trolley out and….set all the blimnin’ alarms off.  Of course I did.

The security lady asked to see my receipts.  I gave her all three and said (possibly a little tightly) that at this point I was happy to just leave the lot with her and go home. Lady looked at the receipts, looked at me, and decided it was probably best not to poke the monster and said I could just leave…with all three lots of shopping packed into the array of partially useful bags.

See?  That’s at least two weeks worth of excitement. Hopefully I’ve banked some too…

When I finally got to Mum and Dads, Mum and I rushed off to see her sister.  And if I’m totally honest with you, after settling them with coffee and cakes I told them I had something to do and…sat in the car for thirty minutes to do a bit of crochet.  That was partly to catch my breath and partly because Mum doesn’t often chat to people without someone else there too.  And she usually gets that someone else to do the talking.  I thought it would be nice not to do that.  I sneaked back in quietly half an hour later and stood in the hall way listening.  Mum and her sister were chatting away.  I have no idea if either was listening to the other but they seemed quite happy, and when I walked in it turned out they were looking at old photos.

Old family photos and learning the stories behind them are one of my favourite things.  My aunt said next time we go she’ll get some more out, so I’m looking forward to that.  Mum can’t remember (or can’t express?) the stories behind them, but with my aunts prompts she did remember some bits.  Like this: 🙂

Posted in Bumpkinsville, dementia, family, looking after Mum, memory, stroke, Tuesday, Tuesday TV | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

a bit of a jump

Posted on September 16, 2024 by thepogblog

According to Mr R, I am really, really good at coming to weird conclusions about things.

Out of the ordinary noise in the house?  Pretty sure it’s a ghost.

Hot water not working?  Boiler has broken (on this one I concede it turned out that after 48 years I STILL can’t work out which way a mixer tap does hot and which way does cold…)

Weird pathway through the 9 foot brambles at the nature reserve at the top of the road?  Clearly elephants.

I mean, see what you think:

(Elephants, right?)

But something really odd happened the other day.

Percy and I went for our usual plod.  I am making a concerted effort to do more running than walking and increase my speed at the moment (thank you Jo Whiley and Couch to 5km).  Our plod is exactly 8km and I know where each km starts and finishes as I am a creature of habit and only have three route variations.  They are all 8km.

(Except when I am feeling very fit and we stretch to a 10km for a day, then remember why we don’t do that often…).

So I was really confused when I looked down at my watch to check we were at the 5km mark and it said…6km.  I assumed it must have glitched.  When I got home my watch congratulated me on my fastest ever kilometer (Jo Whiley might be good at the coaching malarky, but I suspect a couple of weeks is probably not enough to improve that much…)

So I looked at the map, and what should look like this:

Looked like this:

I think you’ll probably agree that the only real possibility is that I was abducted by aliens around the 3km mark, popped in their space craft, zoomed around very fast for exactly a kilometer and popped back on the path to continue on my way.

So far it’s not happened again, but I am keeping my wits about me***. 😁

…or, possibly, my watch glitched 😂

***running is not my favourite thing and frankly anything that keeps my mind off it is a welcome distraction, even if that distraction might be alien spaceship spotting….

Posted in Pog Life, running | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Daddy W

Posted on September 15, 2024 by thepogblog

Yesterday was Dads 78th birthday 😁

As Dad has all the ‘things’ a 78 year old who only leaves the house occasionally to get new library books could possibly need, so my sisters and I decided to cook and eat together instead of doing the ‘things’ thing.

We thought fancy.  Then we remembered it was Dad.  So we decided on ham, egg and chips – his favourite meal.

Even that wasn’t simple – Dad is very particular about his chips – in 9 months of shopping I’ve only managed to get one ‘really good bag’, only to forget what that was and get it wrong every time since.

So Sister 1 was in charge of the chips:

Percy and I got the ham and eggs:

And Sister 2 did her magic with birthday cakes.

And so yesterday we all sat down to food together (including two types of chips, obviously).  And it was really rather lovely 🙂

Happy birthday, Daddy W! 🙂

Posted in COPD, family | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment