A picture from the past

Posted on November 10, 2024 by thepogblog

Last week my cousin sent me this photo that she’d found.  It’s my Nanny and Grandad, my Aunt (right) and Mum (left).

Don’t they all look amazing?!

I love old photos.  I love the little insights they give you into another time.  And of course the ones connected to my family personally are especially interesting to me.

But regardless of whether I know the people or not, one thing I find fascinating is how people seemed to have aged so much faster in previous generations.  And I know it’s because they had things like World Wars and dropping bombs and rations and all sorts of now unimaginable hardships to contend with, but it still holds my attention.

So my first thought on seeing the photo was ‘How old would Mum have been?’ (The family consensus via Facebook messenger was around 6), and then ‘How old would Nanny and Grandad have been?’

It turned out to be rather more complex than I’d thought.  Mum obviously isn’t able to help.  Dad was a bit flummoxed, and we don’t actually know my grandparents dates of birth.

But I do have some family certificates and a rummage around gave me their marriage certificate  – married in 1937 when Nanny was 21 and Grandad was 27, making their years of birth 1916 and 1910.  (Grandads death certificate gives his year of birth as 1908, but what’s a couple of years between friends?).

So by my calculations, if Mum was 6 and her sister was 12 in this photo, that makes Nanny 31 and Grandad 37.

This is a photo of me and Mr R at the races on his birthday last year, (the most recent one that’s not just head and shoulders and the only one looking as smart as Nanny and Grandad) making him 49 and me 47.  I can’t quite get my head around the fact we’re over 12 years older than Nanny and Granddad above. 

Life must have been so different back then, mustn’t it? 🙂💜

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Pumpkin Pog and Bony Tony go on an adventure

Posted on November 7, 2024 by thepogblog

Last week I broke the tin opener.  It fell into five separate parts while opening a tin of tuna.  Then the hoover went bang.  Literally.  Hetty’s motor joined the big clean up party in the sky.  RIP Hetty.

At that point I should have broken a match like Dad used to do in place of a third breakage.  Maybe if I’d done that we wouldn’t have had the fun and games we had early the next morning.  We got up at 4am, drove to Heathrow and boarded a plane for New York.  Mr R was all ready to run the marathon and we were both ready for some city exploring.  We boarded, we taxi’ed, we stopped.  The speedometer (or some such inconsequential bit of plane kit) was broken.  We went back to our stand and presumably some engineers did a fair bit of head shaking and went to work.  They didn’t take us off the plane as it ‘might only take an hour or so’.  It didn’t.  To cut a long story short, it took 5 hours.  And in that time we were served our lunch and (almost) all the alcohol on board.  But – joy of joys – they did fix it, and even though it meant we spent 13 hours on that blimmin’ plane, it didn’t break mid flight and we did get to New York; just a little later than anticipated.

And it was blimmin’ amazing.

We stayed in Queens which was …an experience: huge men with huge gold chains sitting on huge booming speakers, smoking huge quantities of weed outside all the grocery stores regardless of the time of day.  I felt like I should walk in time to the beat with a bit of a swagger.  I considered buying gold hoop earrings.  Hell, I felt like I was in a Neneh Cherry video 😂 (🎶’New York, just like I pictured it; sky scrapers and everything!  Do do do do do do doooh’🎶 ***).  I loved it.  And the view was one you would never be able to get in a fancy Manhattan hotel:

So we got there (eventually).

We did all the things and more.

We walked around 12 miles a day (even when we tried not to so that Mr R could rest his legs).

We discovered that the New York subway is a law unto itself and while I have no sense of direction, Mr R does.  Yet we still mostly ended up on the wrong trains or going in the wrong direction.

I met SO many dogs (about half were wearing Crocs.  I was unsure how I felt about this).

I talked to more New York Policemen in that time that I think I ever have spoken to English ones.  They were all very nice except one who was a bit of an arse.

We accidentally joined the New York Halloween Parade, but thanks to a couple of my NYPD mates managed to get the right side of the barriers again.

We discovered that the New York Halloween Parade contains many, many amazing costumes (well, we assume it did based on the ones we saw.  We went as Pumpkin Pog and Bony Tony – no costumes needed), but it was so dangerously overcrowded that we decided it just wasn’t worth the risk (another NYPD mate told me they’s never seen it like that and were going to start filtering people out rather than letting ones trying to join in), so we went back to Neneh Cherry land and grabbed a pizza on the way.

Himself ran the marathon in 2 hours 54 minutes and 58 seconds.  That made him 57th out of 3453 in the 50-54 age group. He’s speedy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was the only one of us who came home with blisters.

So I might not have broken the match stick and we might have had a rather long time on that plane on the way out but it was worth it – we had such a good time 😁

 

*** Btw, if you recognised those Neneh Cherry lyrics, 1) I am proud of you and 2) I played the track to my stepson before we went so he could properly imagine me singing my way around. ‘How old is this?  Like, 40 years?’  He asked.  I laughed at his daftness – it was from my youth – hardly that old.  38 years.  It is 38 years old.  Fuck a duck.

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For the love of wool

Posted on October 25, 2024 by thepogblog

Wool.  I love wool.  I love that you can go from a ball of the floofy stuff to clothes, toys or pretty much anything.

I can’t remember when I started to crochet.  There are blog posts on here that go back to 2013 but I think it was a bit earlier than that.  I can remember that Mum tried to teach me.  It went very very badly wrong (she’s never been very patient), so I ended up teaching myself from a book.

(Incidentally, it turns out that in their 20s, Mum tried teaching some of her colleagues to crochet in their lunch hour.  She still knows three of these ladies and they have all told me over the years that it went very, very badly wrong as Mum wasn’t patient and they all ended up a bit scared.  Good to know it wasn’t just me 😬)

Anyway, from the unimpressive and pretty hopeless start of triangles that were supposed to be squares, I managed to progress and an absolute obsession was born.  I was quite proud to be a ‘single lady in a tiny house with a cat and borderline unhealthy crochet habit’.

Back then, my sister (supportively) showed me this:

(She is hilarious).

But I found a few boyfriends in that decade.  Most of them were rubbish.  One turned out pretty good though so I married him – which nobody in the world had ever expected to happen in my life – most of all me.

BUT.  It has changed nothing on the wool front.  And I currently have five projects on the go, around 324789 plans in my head, wool stashed in wardrobes, boxes, my step sons room, in the eves and under the house so that Mr R doesn’t realise quite how many sheep we effectively own and I just found a new pattern.  I’ve not seen anything like it before and I am SO excited to try it out that my tummy really does feel like the tummy of a five year old on Christmas Eve.  Luckily I have a bit of spare wool to start it.  And one more project on the go is ok, isn’t it?

I’ll show you how it turns out next week.  For now I have to go and hunt down just the right wool…. 😁

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The tricky Tuesday

Posted on October 24, 2024 by thepogblog

It was a tricky Tuesday this week.

I don’t know what it was that annoyed Mum initially – maybe when I suggested we put on her bra that she had forgotten.  Or when I told her that one sock should go on each foot – not both on the same one.  Or when I struggled to get her shoes on because she had trodden down the backs with her attempt.

She was upset when I said that she was so wobbly we’d need to do Tesco with her in the wheelchair (no) or she could sit in the cafe with a coffee while I zoomed around (also no).  She sat in the car and people watched instead.  I thought all was good again but when we got home I asked her to drink a glass of water before she had her coffee and Tuesday cake.  (It turns out Mum doesn’t like / wont eat the Jelly Drop sweets, so we’re back to trying to insist on having a glass of water every so often again).  She refused.  She told me in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want to drink it, didn’t need to drink it and would not drink it.  I said that was fine, but she had to drink it if she wanted her donut.  She went and sat on her bed and stared out the window.

I left it a while (sometimes she forgets that she is having a sulk) and went in to ask if she’d like to come out in the wheel chair with me and Percy.  She said she would.  I asked if she could just finish the water first and the whole thing started again.

I left it a bit longer (she’d finished the water by this time – hooray!) and asked again.  She said that she wouldn’t as I told her she wasn’t allowed to come and she didn’t want to talk to me anyway.  I said I would like her to come with us and so would Percy.  But she said no and continued staring out the window.

So Percy and I went for a wander alone.

And then I swept the leaves from Mum and Dads drive.  And made the ham and egg pie I was going to make with Mum for their tea.  Dad said they enjoyed it.

It was nice to chat to Dad for a bit though – although it turns out I ask a lot of questions and answering them can be tricky for someone having breathing issues (only a 5/10 on Tuesday though, after a rather more scary 9/10 when Dad went to town last week, prompting a discussion about letting us know when he approached the ‘never been this bad before’ 10/10.).

So it was tricky.  Mum can be tricky – much more with Dad than with anyone else and never with anyone outside the family.  Sometimes she can be downright unkind and mean.  And I’d love to gloss over the not so nice bits, but hearing that other people struggle with this has helped me, so maybe reading this will help some other Pog in some other place.  And the thing about this dementia thing is that it changes frequently – for the good as well as the bad.  It is just so blimin’ frustrating sometimes!

https://youtu.be/phJsc1yCWnQ?si=AaHR21LFf31DikwB

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I waved at the window man!

Posted on October 22, 2024 by thepogblog

I was running with Percy on the bridge over the A27 and the window man drove past in the opposite direction.  I waved at him and he waved back.  And it was AMAZING!

Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it did feel blimin’ good 😁

If you’ve been around here a while you might have read my words about trying to meet people and fit in to places.  It’s a tricky thing to become part of a community when you don’t have kids. And you work from home.  I moved to Beachville seven years ago and I’ve done sooooo many things to try to be part of this place (not helped by Covid, thank you very much, you global pandemic, you) but nothing really worked.  But it turns out that the fitting in was sneaking up on me really, really slowly.

I *did* start passing the time of day with the man over the road when we are both out dog walking.  He’s not a people person (I’m not actually sure I am either) so it’s short and sweet, but we are at the stage now where I occasionally borrow his lawnmower and get advice on fish from him, as you do.

And the family up the road who have a Percy look alike kindly fed Norman when we went away a few times, so we chat to them when we see them too.

And their neighbour works for the company that fitted our windows and he’s into gardening and offers tomato plants and cucumbers that he grows in the growing season, which is lovely.

And of course there is Beryl up the road (93) who always has a word to share about the weather when we pass dog walking, and Derrick (83) who walks his dog past our house and indicates his pleasure or displeasure over how clean or dirty Mr Rs car is.

Then there are our actual neighbours.  One side our actual neighbours don’t talk to us (it’s a long story) but the ones on the other are the best. We got to know them because when Mr R and I were away in Manchester, I got a text to say our Ocado order would be arriving in the next hour. I called Lovely Neighbours in desperation, and despite the fact we’d only swapped numbers for emergency ‘your house is on fire’ type messages, they took our entire shop in like it was a totally normal thing to do for some weirdo who cant work out which day is which.  And obviously that’s the basis of an actual friendship… including everything from meeting up in Morocco (obviously) to the most gorgeous bunch of roses when Norman left us.

And then last week morning, I waved at the window man – the one with the cucumber and tomato plants.  And is there anything that tells you you’re part of a community more than being waved at from a van as you wheeze your way towards the Downs looking rather beetroot like ?

It’s taken seven years, but I finally, finally, feel like I am part of a real community.  And that feels good. 🙂

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Muddled Life Practical Tip for hydration – Jelly Drops

Posted on October 18, 2024 by thepogblog

Jelly Drops.

The blurb says:

‘Boost hydration through an irresistible sweet

Jelly Drops are an innovative sugar-free treat, made of 95% water with added electrolytes & vitamins, designed to increase fluid intake.

Popular with people with dementia, the elderly & others who struggle to stay hydrated.’

The website is:  https://www.jellydrops.com/

You can read all he details on the site, but these are the headlines as far as I understand it:

  • These work alongside drinking, not instead of as a pack provides 50ml water.
  • The company cannot recommend how many are eaten a day as they are classed as sweets but  it seems that there isn’t an upper limit. (That’s all covered on this page).  But on their subscription page they seem to suggest anywhere from 1.5 to six packs a day, and there are nine ‘sweets’ in each pack.
  • They are not a cheap option.  You can get a free trial at the start of a subscription (which you can cancel at any time or you can order a stand alone box with either 21 or 42 packs.  Depending on the option chosen the packs can work out at anything from 95p to £1.15 each. So 1.5 packs is less than a cup of coffee, six packs would be closer to a glass of wine in a pub.
  • They taste like raw jelly with a softer consistency.  They don’t need chewing.

Mum’s arrived this week and she seemed to like all the flavours we had.  We’ve agreed to aim to remind her to have a packet a day but having looked into the detail for this post, I think she probably needs more.  But we’ll see how it goes for now. 🙂

(PS:  I have no affiliation with this company so all links go direct to their site with no kickbacks to me!)

 

 

 

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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?

🙂

 

 

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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