Friday 31st May - Where did May go?

Where did May go?

It went in a whirlygig of looking after my godmother, driving back and forwards to her house or to the hospital, rescheduling schools in order to be where we were needed... they admitted her on Thursday 20th after her follow-up consultation because she was so weak from being unable to eat or drink.

It went in cleaning - her kitchen, ours, prepping for the painting of the hall stairs and landing (he finished yesterday)...

It went in watering the garden nearly every night...

The most intense period of activity luckily coincided with half term, which ends this weekend.

Where did May go indeed?

I would have to read my diary to be certain of what happened when. I didn't dare leave writing it up for more than a day.

There has been a lot of sitting in cafes, drinking coffee, eating biscuits and cakes all the last two weeks.

I'm trying to brush up on my sketching skills ready for when we go on holiday later this year;
The cafe at the hospital has a little courtyard with surprisingly exotic plants

and a battered old shed. The ivy is full of little twittery birds

Some people at the next table when we went to a pub for lunch one day. I was fascinated with the sound of their conversation, and the way that their postures reflected their personalities

Finally a five-minute water-colour dibble. I was idly looking at a place mat in a shop window and noticed the way they painted the lavender...

 
June looks fair to be as challenging as May - my godmother is likely to be able to go home any day now, with a full and intensive support package, but we shall still be visiting frequently.

I've this weekend to send out my invoices for the rest of term, and write another 14 piano reports. They very thought sends me reaching for the paintbox... 

Wednesday 29th May - Catching up with ourselves

Today was a blissful 'not talking to people' day for me;

We don't visit my Godmother in hospital every day, and today was a non-visit day as he had an appointment elsewhere.

That made it a later start this morning. For some absurd reason, I suddenly decided to wash down the walls in the kitchen over by the cooker. I think it was because I was so impressed by the 'BANG! and the dirt is gone!' spray that I used in my godmother's kitchen a the weekend that I thought it might possibly work the same wonder on ours.

And wow! I'm glad I was wearing my marigolds, otherwise it might very easily be 'BANG! and your fingers are dissolved to nothing!'

 It is Powerful Juju, as Kipling might say. I do apologise for this but I just had to take a photograph;

Just Look At The Shine On Those Taps! Like new, that's what. I used the degreaser to clean the windows, that was pretty effective too, although I need to wait for the sunshine before I do a proper gloat.

Himself dropped me off in town on his way to The Appointment (dentist, if you are curious) and I had a rare day of going round the shops All By Myself. I kept the spending spree to a reasonable minimum - one packet of socks (I came to my senses at the checkout and put the other packet back), and two metres of satin ribbon and a leaflet about turning them into roses (why? - I don't know. My senses deserted me at that point, but ribbon is only 70p per metre).

I also spotted something that I had been keeping an eye open for, well, both eyes actually, I'm not good at winking. The sewing/wool shop had a ex-display cardigan, knitted up by one of the shop assistants to show off the yarn, reduced from expensive to reasonable. My godmother has been feeling chilly round the shoulders in hospital, so this might work as a sort of bed jacket.

The other sort-of-success this morning was getting my hair cut. I'm not totally convinced with the result, but then I never am. Maybe washing it will sort it out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairstyle

NASA astronaut Catherine (Cady) Coleman trims the hair of European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoliin the Kibo laboratory on the International Space Station during Expedition 26. A hair clipper attached to a vacuum cleaner was used to remove the free-floating hair clippings.^[48]

When we got home, the 'urge to clean things' was still strong. So, I tested out a suggestion that Brown Sauce makes a good job of cleaning brass and copper. I can report that this is definitely the case. I can add that out-of-date balsamic salad dressing also works well, but leaves a bit of a greasy film, easily dealt with with hot water and washing up liquid. Somewhere there is a joke about using HP Sauce (Houses of Parliament Sauce) to remove grime and tarnish...

Although my hands now have a faintly detectable odour of brown sauce and balsamic dressing, I find that infinitely preferable to the stench of 'proper' brass and copper cleaner.

I suspect that all this cleaning is a diversionary tactic to avoid report writing. I've done the first 4; just 12 more to go...

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/jul/29/multiple-choice-school-reports

My needlework reports from prep school were roughly the same as Roald Dahl's Latin.     

Sunday 26th - and breathe...

We're sitting down, each with a coffee to hand. The cats have stopped paddling around and chosen their preferred resting places.

No television, no sound except the rattle of the computer keys and the ticking of the clock. The garden is watering itself from time to time (ie it is drizzling outside).

We've come back from visiting my Godmother; she is getting stir crazy. They let her have a zimmer frame for a toilet trip and she was off like a ferret down a rabbit hole, the nurse having to move smartly to keep up. 'Oh my, we aren't used to them going that fast,' cried the nurse as she set off in pursuit. She still tires quickly; it's going to be a while yet before she gets her discharge papers and goes home.

Anyway, here are some random thoughts


Inside this unlikely-looking package  are four Jacob's crackers, four squares of cheddar, a dollop of Branston pickle and a small plastic spreader. When you have spent a day in and out of a hospital visiting an elderly relative, have had too many lukewarm mediocre coffees and are facing a 90 minute drive home, one of these packets shared between us is a surprisingly excellent thing.

As are these Itsu chocolate rice cakes, shared between us as we drive home, or these mini pretzels

                

In future we are going to keep small containers of pretzels and similar delicacies in the car. Not the cheese thingies though. I don't think they have that kind of shelf life, and spreading Branston pickle onto crackers and handing them to the driver is probably A Bad Idea.

We have found a Waitrose halfway along one of the routes home, relatively easy to get to with a reasonable car park (especially with the Panda which turns on a sixpence and slips into awkward spaces with ease). As well as selling food, it has Important facilities like loos, and a cafe which sells macaroni cheese with cauliflower and bacon - the ultimate comfort food.

Food and evening meals have been a bit of an issue recently. We are getting more canny, buying things that can go into the freezer if we don't eat them in time, and can also be cooked from frozen.

Random Fact
We've been keeping a record of the differences in the cost of running the Alfas and the Panda. The savings we have made are on track for the Panda to have paid for itself by the end of June.

The accounting is a little tricksy to substantiate; one of the reasons we will reach break even so soon (we had figured on it being October) is because of the savings we make in the difference in cost each time we fill the car with petrol. Because the number of long distance trips we have been doing, we are obviously filling the tank more often, and therefore saving money more frequently... I did wonder if we should buy another Panda in order to make even more savings, but I am assured that that's not quite how it works.

Saturday 25th May - One hundred miles...

NO, I exaggerate - when we visit my Godmother at her house it is only a 90 mile round trip, taking an hour and half each way. Now that she's in hospital it is only a 70 mile round trip, about an hour each way.

If you add on a surprise trip to Nymans' Garden, because cousins from Northern Ireland are over on a coach tour to visit Chelsea Flower Show and various Gardens, including Nymans, it becomes a very long round trip indeed! Seeing the cousins and catching up with all the news as we wandered round admiring the Spring border and the azaleas was a real pleasure and a lovely pause in an otherwise crowded and eventful week.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Dovecote%2C_Nymans_Gardens_-_geograph.org.uk_-_255336.jpg
creative commons

My Godmother has been worryingly ill for a couple of months, and we've been visiting her at her house or meeting her at the hospital after tests several times a week for about ten weeks now. The time has come to reconsider where she would be best - at 90 years old she has at last decided that she doesn't want to be fiercely independent anymore, and we have started a process that will hopefully result in her moving to sheltered accommodation near us.

However

the 'barium swallow' a week ago was the last straw in her being able to consume anything at all - even water could only pass through her throat in tiny amounts. I wish, I wish, that we lived closer, that I wasn't working, that - all sorts of things - but wishes belong in fairy land and there are no magic wands and flue powder in the real world. She went into hospital last week, so frail that they didn't dare attempt any kind of intervention except a drip for now, and maybe see what could be done next week.

Yesterday, when we went to visit, she had gone! Where? Down to surgery to have a stent fitted, so that she would be able to start drinking fluids again. Maybe even YOGHURT! She is amazing - the staff at the hospital are amazing. We found her sitting up in bed looking so pleased with the world.

Her life will be immeasurably improved by the stent; however, we all know, herself included, that the long term is not going to be all that long. How long? Who knows. She has eosophageal cancer. Last week she said that she was too frail to consider any treatment - but now - who can tell.

At the moment it feels as though we can't make any plans at all. I do hate that stage in any kind of project - when it is 'all change' but with no answers to 'how? what? where? when?'

Meanwhile, I try and resist the lure of blotting everything out with hours of Freecell

www.xkcd.com

 
 

Monday 20th May - what? wha? wh?

This is roughly how the day began and ended today - so much happened... everything changed every moment...

 I filled up the first half hour of the day, before anything external invaded our lives by writing out a piece of music I will need on Wednesday, when I will be giving a piano lesson to a bored 11-year-old-teenager who doesn't like practising. Banal, maybe, but will fit the bill nicely. I'm not sure how to finish it, so I left the ending for another time;

It is a sort of mish mash of all the teenager-y compositions I have ever listened to...

Now, remember, it is still morning and we have only just finished our first cup of coffee of the day.. 
Name one important thing to have got completely sorted by the time the painter turns up at 8.30 am on a Monday morning.

Well, B and Q opens at 8:30 so while we was setting up we went out and bought two 5l cans of it. I can't exactly remember what colour we settled on - I think it was Almond White. Whatever. It will be much better than the tired old paint we had before.

We also snaffled a bag of earth and other bits and pieces for the garden, so I was able to plant the tomato seedlings I was given yesterday - two for hanging baskets, two for tubs in the veggie patch.

A telephone call from my father brought useful information regarding the process for arranging for my Godmother to move into a flat of her own in the same accommodation as him. More immediately, it meant that I wasn't going to have to try and arrange a meeting with the manager into the gap between teaching piano from home (9.30 to 11 am) and teaching at a local school (1.30 to 3pm)

Only 9.30 am -  time for teaching at home...

and afterwards, time to start a 14 day on-line writing course, where you spend half an hour a day, every day, for 14 days to try and get going, while he cooks

Lunch.

School

Home

More piano teaching

Supper

Knitting

Television

Blog post

I don't usually resort to 'language' but these cat pictures just seemed to fit the bill.

Definitely a Three Chocolate Biscuit day.

Sunday 19th May - NOT a Sabbath Rest

Having discovered yesterday evening that work is to begin on painting the hall-stairs-and-landing tomorrow, he had a busy busy day.

The two bookshelves on the landing were emptied and reduced to their component parts. I've advertised them round the church group as we don't intend to put them back. All the books are in the son's bedroom. The plan is to select the few, VERY FEW, books we wish to keep, and send all the others on their way. (Son and daughter, take note!)

The top of one of the bookshelves is a bit damaged; this happened when Himself made a sudden and unexpected descent from the loft many years ago. We are eternally gratefully to that bookshelf for saving him from a headlong tumble over the banister and down the stairs.

We have a stack of cassettes to go - mostly nursery rhymes and Thomas the Tank Engine stories... speak now, or forever hold your peace.

All the house plants are sitting disconsolately on the patio outside in the rain. I'm hoping it doesn't freeze (although that would solve the aloe vera problem). 

While clearing the hall I discovered a massive pile of those charity collection bags that get shoved through the letterbox several times a week (oh, to be living up a muddy lane rather than in a suburban street). One was clearly biodegradable. I thought I had taken a picture of the heap of confetti surrounding the couple of items waiting to go to some charity... but it's not there on my phone.

The hall is in a state that no-one has seen since it was last painted about twenty-five or more years ago.

However the dining room table is worse than ever

and the heaps have invaded half the floor space.

(A cello, a djembe, a saxophone and three bags for the samba drums. The place mats are sitting on a cajun)

It's all a bit overwhelming. And it's not as though I did most of the work - holding bits and pieces while hooks and pictures were taken down, carrying one or two boxes upstairs, was about the limit of my usefulness. We went out for lunch in order to buck ourselves up ready to finish the job. Right now I'm thinking that retiring to bed for a couple of weeks with books and boxes of chocolates might be a most desirable thing.

18th May - And another week goes by

If I didn't keep a daily write up in a book beside my bed, I would have no idea what has happened this week. But that book is upstairs, and I am downstairs, and if I go upstairs I will lie down on my bed and go to sleep. Possibly forever... following the example of Leo...

You can tell this week has got out of control by the state of the dining room table; always a good indicator of the chaos coeffecient;

Monday - visit to my Godmother. (The last visit had been the previous day!)

There was a mix-up in the appointments for her 'barium swallow', which she had been told (in our hearing, so that hare won't run!) was going to be on Thursday 16th May. That was until she received a letter on 10th May informing her that it was to be on 9th May. 'See you there,' it ended cheerily. Part of me was quite glad the letter was late; I had moved two schools and five evening students in order to clear the 16th. We managed to reinstate the original day, for a slightly later time - Phew. 

The gas bill needed sorting, (weird reporting system they use, but half an hour's concentrated work proved it was factually correct)

Mended her bathroom light pull

Sat in on a telephone consultation with her doctor to organise more fortified drinks (all she can manage now) and repeat prescription, and bring him up to date on the situation

That was Monday. Now for the rest of the week...

Tuesday was a day for teaching a school rescheduled from Thursday 2nd May (her endoscopy).

Wednesday was a day for teaching a school rescheduled from Thursday 16th May. By now I was beginning to get confused regarding days of the week with going to different schools on different days!

Thursday was a day for getting some of our own stuff done before driving off to meet her at her 'barium swallow'. She had arrived early, and they had taken her in already. Everything went smoothly, but, the barium stuff coated her throat so much that she was unable to swallow anything for several hours. It was an opportunity to collect the 84 bottles of the fortified drink from the pharmacy and stowing it in the kitchen, and waiting until at last she began to be able to manage small sips of water. Oh, and once home, after a quick bite to eat, I went to view one of the flats that we have identified as perfect for her to move in to. We were not wrong - it would be excellent if we can make it happen. Not least because it is just down the road from our house!

On Friday I tried to ring in the morning to see how she was getting on. I wasn't seriously envisaging nightmare scenarios of her being totally unable to swallow anything, not even water, just.... considering the consequences if that should be the case....but her phone kept switching to answerphone before she could get to it. I was able to contact a neighbour who went round to tell her that we would come on Saturday and fix the phone, and we learned that the she was managing to drink more easily.

On Saturday - that's today! -  off to the Music Centre at 8am. I taught until 12:45 and had a sandwich lunch after, before travelling (a 90 minute drive) to my godmother's house. The phone had fixed itself  (how?). Even better, she had improved and could manage the drinks, sip by sip, if they are thinned down with water or milk. And, even more good news, another hospital appointment, hopefully to do something about the constriction in her throat, for Thursday this week, so one of us will be there again to look after her. Back at 4:30 this afternoon - stiff from the driving and tired from everything!

He has watered all the new plants in the garden, and my vegetables, and found something that will cook from frozen in the freezer. Today is officially STOPPED.

At some stage this week I found time to deal with a task that has been bothering me for months; all these tiddly little aloe vera plants, and the big ones at the back, were trying to survive in a 6" pot on a bedroom windowsill.

I'm not quite sure what to do with them - there are 17 little ones, and 5 hulking great big ones. All come from one little baby plant given to me by one of the daughter's friends about fifteen, or maybe twenty years ago.   

 

Still Sunday 12th May - seems like a week happens in one day

Well, my Godmother is bearing up well, how I don't know. We took her another box of fortisips - luckily she really likes the taste of them -  to keep her going until the doctors can get a regular supply set up. Not helped by the fact that the particular fortisips she was prescribed by the hospital will soon no longer be stocked by NHS, so an alternative has to be found - here's hoping she like the taste of the replacement as much as she is enjoying these ones!

And here's also hoping that the hospital and the doctors and anyone else who can be helpful will bring this current situation to a quick and effective and acceptable resolution!

Meanwhile....

James came to put the plants into the new border yesterday;

Some of the plants and shrubs have flowers on...

 

I have no idea what most of them are - James has promised to tell me when he comes to finish the job on Tuesday. I just asked him to make sure that there would be something to look out for every month of the year... He has insisted on a couple of dahlias. I have taken his word for it that they are not the same as the ones I used to help my father plant every Spring, dead-head all through every Summer, and then lift every Autumn. 'No, no, nothing like that.' I hope not. But I bet they will still be full or eariwigs.

We celebrated by mending the outside tap. Trawling through the blog I discovered this post from May 30th 2015, when I described How The Tap Stop Working; an event of great suddeness which happened in the previous winter. We've been without a tap since then, until today. It was one of those repairs which needed a number of ducks to be lined up in a row; like means, opportunity and motive; and 4pm on Saturday 11th May 2019 was the day.

public domain

 
I've also been knitting. It has taken me a couple of days to pluck up the courage for the next step on the cardigan which is picking up around 200 stitches all the way up the right-hand-side, across the neck, and down the left hand side. Counting and measuring and considering and then doing all of that some more. Tonight I read up a couple of sets of instructions on the internet and got started. I wanted to use some new circular knitting needles which I ordered last eek, but discovered I had ordered the ones with a 20cm cable instead of a 20 inch cable. There's a bit of a difference.

The next crochet square is well under way - nearly finished now. Two more circuits and I will have finished it - already. It is in a colourway called 'Callas' - after Maria Callas, I guess, as the different colourss are called after composers and artists. I'm not sure that she would have approved of the shades - they are quite muted, not in keeping of her character, as I recall.

I had a couple of days of twitching after I had finished the two previous squares (bright circus colours, called Kahlo, presumably for Frida?) as There Was No More Wool.

But then this bag arrived in the post - look at that wonderfully Welsh address -

I chose the browny-greeny-mustardy skein (Callas) as everything else I am knitting is blue-ish in colour, and squshed the completed squares into the bottom of the bag.

And I have managed to clear the dining room table - apart from the knitting which is laid out for picking up those stitches - just another 120 or so to go.

Sunday 12th May - Living on a Carousel

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fairground,_Beamish_Museum,_1_July_2011_(2).jpg

I used to love going on the galloping horses when I was little. The fairground came to the common every Summer, with Sally Beeches' Famous Galloping Horses set up in the most conspicuous place.

This last week - no, the whole month so far - oh, that is only a week or so - has felt like being on the Gallopers.

I seem to be rescheduling events as fast as I can write them down, and altering the rescheduled events before I know what the new schedule is. Time to abandon computer calendars and go back to paper.

Why? The annual SATS tests for the primary schools always completely scrambles things, as the whole school is kept as silent as can be and all music lessons cancelled (especially djembe) to give the children the best chance. Every available room is commandeered as many of the children have help with reading the questions, or help with writing the answers. This is a surprisingly skilled job, reading the questions without giving away the answer; 'the question is 29 take away 3, and you have a choice of four answers; do you think it is 30, or 16, OR 26 or 24?' Then you have to watch without comment as they choose the wrong answer. Saying 'Are you sure' is absolutely forbidden...

But I digress; a major part of the round-and-round-in-my-head-ness is caused by the increasing frailty of my 90 year old godmother. Unsurprisingly, two months of not being able to eat solid food, and existing on a liquid diet of tea, coffee, soup, and supplement drinks is taking its toll. From being  nearly fully self-reliant she is becoming less and less able to cope. Add in a series of hospital appointments and tests, and most of us would be beginning to get confused. How I wish she lived just down the road, instead of an hour and a half away!

I've been tearing my hair rescheduling schools and pupils in order to be with her at the hospital, or when the doctor might be calling. Paper and pencil. Round we go again. Every new appointment means a slew of emails and telephone calls and reorganisations...

I'm also pushing down my own disappointment at setting aside what I'd like to do... I want to try and paint something from the Morris Dancers that were stomping their stuff in town yesterday while it is all fresh in my mind

and I've another bit of the story to write, and it's a glorious day for going down to the sea... There will be other days.

And the keep-the-dining-room-table plan has collapsed - hopefully only temporarily.

This morning I went out into the garden and pulled up several handfuls of weeds just to take a mental break from working out what time we wanted to leave to visit her, where to buy sandwiches for our lunch as she will have no food in the house for us (just cup soups and coffee and supplement drinks!) and what paperwork to take and remembering to fill the car with petrol.

Pulling up weeds and having another coffee and writing this blogpost seems to have done the trick. I think we have a plan. 









    

Tuesday 7th May - Back to work

Good Morning Everyone!

Time for a quick blog post before I set off to work...

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's of to work I go, with a bucket and spade and

an extraordinary assortment of stuff crammed into my back pack - music books and stickers and staplers and glue sticks and blu tac and prizes and stars and pencils and packed lunch and travel mug and this and that and the other. However I have refrained from un-plumbing the kitchen sink and taking that as well.

My efforts to keep the table tidy are still effective

and I have finished two granny squares

and this weird and wonderful bit of knitting is my cardigan

Let me explain -  at the lower edge, nearest the chair, is the left sleeve, which morphs into the left front and the back. Moving up the table, you will see that I have cast off the left front, continuing to knit the back, and then cast on the right front. Now, at the top edge, I have reached the point where I cast off the right front and the back, and I am about to make the right sleeve. Seemples.

Then I will pick up stitches to knit a broad edge for the left and right front, and incidentally make a collar across the back. Fold the thing in half, sew up the side seams and - voila - a cardigan.

Except that I want to make the sleeves longer, so I have arranged things so that once I know how much wool I have left, I can do some Hard and Difficult Thinking to work out how to achieve this without too many retries. Memo to self - do this before sewing up the seams.

This Bank Holiday weekend has been the coldest for many years according to the weather people. I concur. I have not been out in the garden At All, but luckily it seems to have been getting on without me.

 
I sowed some seeds over the Easter weekend; the spinach is looking promising in the top left tub, the broad beans survived the winter and are still in flower, the bottom left tub, half obscured, shows a faint hope of beetroot, and the radish is looking most enthusiastic.

Saturday 4th May - Wiggonholt, Hardham, Stopham

Today dawned bright and sunny. I turned over and went back to sleep...

but not for too long. But for nearly too long - by the time we were out and about at ten, the sunny weather was more like 'changeable' and 'chilly'.

First stop - pick up my father, who was joining us on the jaunt, and then off to Wiggonholt. I've wanted to look inside for quite a while, but it was locked last time we called by. Today it was open (and very, very cold inside!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiggonholt

It looks exactly like this, if you put more grey into the sky and more green onto the trees. I didn't take any photographs, but if you go here you will see pictures of the interior, with the large oil lamps suspended from the ceiling - no electricity here! I did play the harmonium - you would need a lot of stamina to keep pedalling and playing for a really long hymn.

Then on to St Botolph's, Hardham, where we have been a couple of times before. The building is still pretty much as the Saxons left it;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Botolph%27s_Church,_Hardham

And lookee, lookee - these are some of the best wall paintings anywhere... here's wikipedia...

St Botolph's Church is the Church of England parish church of Hardham, West Sussex. It is in Horsham District and is a Grade I listed building. It contains the earliest nearly complete series of wall paintings in England.^[1] Among forty individual subjects is the earliest known representation of St. George in England.^[2] Dating from the 12th century, they were hidden from view until uncovered in 1866 and now "provide a rare and memorable impression of a medieval painted interior".^[3] The simple two-cell stone building, with its original medieval whitewashed exterior, has seen little alteration and also has an ancient bell.



Last time we came they had a very wheezy harmonium; this time round there is a portable stand for an electric keyboard. Plus ca change etc.

Once you have let your eyes adjust, and got used to what you are looking at, the images become clearer. The wikipedia site is as good as any to see more of the pictures and read up the history.

It is astonishing to think of so many of the churches having these comprehensive wall paintings, and the parishioners being enveloped in these pictures. We are so used to bare walls, white paint...

Final stop - Stopham, appropriately! But not the church. We were now frozen to the marrow. Medieval folk must have been hardier, and gone about in layers and layers of clothes.

No, we headed for The White Hart and coffee (or gin-and-tonic) and, eventually, fish and chips. (Thank you very much indeed for the treat!) I whiled away the waiting time with paints.

Wiggonholt church

And afterwards we meandered across the ancient bridge

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopham

 watching some people drift upstream with the tide, and then get to work to paddle homewards. There is plenty of history and interest associated with this old bridge, which was still being used up until its replacement in 1986 by a broad modern construction just upstream.

Home. Some of us will have had a little snooze, some to chill out on the computer, or by reading, and I finished sewing up my Bamboozle jumper! Hurrah!

'Please let it fit me, please let it fit me' I was muttering as I finished the last few inches of seam. And it does. That's a happiness.