Wednesday and Thursday 18th and 9th December

Here are the O antiphons for yesterday and today

or you can listen here for the 18th and here for the 19th

We spent yesterday, 18th December, following the Law, as it concerned the death of my Godmother; collecting paperwork from the hospital first thing n the morning, so that we could then go to the funeral directors to start arranging the funeral, go on to her house to check for mail and messages and collect photographs to use at the funeral, and then to formally register the death in order to acquire certificates and an all-important 'green paper' to authorise the cremation.

In the course of all this we ate most of a packet of chocolate Minstrels and half a roll of peppermints (as well as lunch in a one-of-a-kind gluten-free very very healthy-eating cafe which produced an excellent frittata and an interesting three bean chilli and sausage patty - not our usual fare, but surprisingly satisfactory at the time)

It was a long day.

Today was more paperwork and more telephone calls. Oh, and I haven't forgotten it is Christmas - there were the last couple of dozen cards to write! More chocolate has been consumed in the process (purely medicinal, of course).

I've been going through the couple of tins of photographs to choose some for the order of service. Back then, photographs were an expensive, rationed record; the tins are full of snapshots barely two inches square. I have found some wonderful and amusing pictures of my god-mother as a baby, back in the 1920s which have made the whole day worth while.

Going through this process feels like a new stage of becoming an adult - perhaps I'm just a late developer!

Tuesday 1st August - Knitting Tangles

There is nothing like knitting for learning patience, perseverance, and all sorts of goodly and desirable virtues.

And also for increasing one's vocabulary of unfortunate and inappropriate words and phrases.

I've two main projects on the go.

This yarn is called Bamboozle

It comes in hanks, which have to be carefully laid out and rolled into a ball before you can knit with them. Notice - FIVE little balls of wool beside an the hank. That's because they came from a hank which had four joins in it. Unimpressed.

Here is the front - the yarn has random changes of colour and also of thickness - one moment you are knitting with slippery, silky-soft thin yarn, the next moment it has turned into something more like cotton wool. It is surprisingly easy to manage, though, and I love the finished texture. However, it is extremely difficult to measure how long or wide the piece is, which is why I haven't ended it off, but left balls of yarn attached at the top in case I need to add some more.

Which means I have to knit the sleeves next, in order to lay the pieces together to see if the armholes will be the same size for the front and the sleeves.

I could have shown you a finished sleeve. At the weekend I had almost completed it, but then I discovered a mistake right down at the cuff. And then another mistake right at the start, when casting on the stitches to begin knitting. I went through the usual process;

step 1; stop and consider whether it mattered
step 2; surely no-one would notice
step 3; actually it would show
step 4 rip out the knitting and gather up the mental strength to start again.

No matter. I have another WIP to turn to; a blue medium-weight jumper I started in the Spring. It is knitted using a method called "top-down". You use "circular" needles

 
which means that you can knit round and round in circles. So, for a "top-down" jumper, you cast on for the neck, knit down as far as the shoulders, leave stitches on a holder to add sleeves in later, and continue down to the waist. Then you get some needles joined by a wire, go back to the hole you left for the sleeve and put those stitches on the needle and knit the sleeve down to the cuff. Are you with me so far?

The other way of knitting round and round and round is to use a set of four identical needles, with a point at each end;



you spread your tube of knitting around three (sometimes four) needles, and use another one to knit with. So you knit the stitches off a needles onto the spare needle, releasing a needles to knit the next lot with. I thought I'd try this technique with the second sleeve. Big mistake - I was well down the second sleeve when I discovered that my knitting was now much looser, so this sleeve was about an inch wider than the other one.

Deep breath, and rip out the sleeve. So, my blue jumper looks like this at the moment;

Because of the way the jumper is constructed, you can try it on before it is finished, which I did. I'm relieved to discover that it is a good fit, and I like it very much indeed. Which is just as well, as on Monday morning, after several inches of knitting, I found that I was doing the pattern incorrectly. Sigh. Still, I'm getting good at ripping back the stitches, and then carefully picking them all up again (the secret is to use a finer needle to pick them up). Last night I discovered one incorrect stitch about ten rows back. Sigh. Yes, it will matter. Half-an-hour's delicate work with a crochet hook, dropping the stitch down and working it back up again and all is well.

The advantage of this form of construction is that there will be no seams to sew up - once I have knitted the last stitch and darned in the loose ends, it will be finished. The disadvantage, is that as I knit round and round the sleeve, I have to keep turning the whole garment to untwizzle the knitting. It is also quite a warm thing to have bundled on your lap, which is why I took a break from knitting it during the spell of baking hot weather back in July. I'm hoping I finish it fairly quickly before I forget what I am doing and have to start over again...

Tuesday 2nd August - This'n'that

I've spent most of today switching between watercolour painting and practising the first Goldberg Variation.

It works like this: I paint in a wash of colour, but then it has to dry completely before the next step. So, I just turn round,

and get to grips with the next bit of Bach. That distracts me from trying to carry on with the painting too soon. 

I'm messing about with watercolours - something that I keep returning to every couple of years. My mother tried to get me interested in acrylics, but I just didn't like the gloopy feel of the paint. Watercolours have a surprising congruence with playing the harpsichord which I wasn't expecting. It's all about the precision of articulation and phrasing, balancing the tone, leaving clear space between colours and sounds. There's a lot of work to be done on both the painting and playing.

I've tripped across a website where every week they put up a list of ten words to react to;  

The game is to follow each word with whatever comes into you mind first.

If you want to have a go, without being contaminated by my answers, stop reading now, as my responses are below.

I'll just fill in the space with the explanation from the website. You can take it with as much salt as you please.




"Free association is described as a "psychoanalytic procedure in which a person is encouraged to give free rein to his or her thoughts and feelings, verbalizing whatever comes into the mind without monitoring its content". Over time, this technique is supposed to bring forth repressed thoughts and feelings that the person can then work through to gain a better sense of self.

That's an admirable goal, but for the purposes of this exercise, we're hoping to have a little fun with the technique. Each week I'll post ten words to which you can respond to with the first thing that comes to mind.

Rules? There are no rules. There are no right or wrong answers. Don't limit yourself to one word responses; just say everything as it pops into your head."

Here are my replies:

Substandard - Not there yet
Rude - Mechanicals
Equality - not to be grasped at
Smile! - no
Presidential? - Like Trump?
Fish - nor fowl
Cloudy - Rather pleasant little piano piece by Christopher Norton that I'm teaching at the moment called "Cloudy Day"
Wondering - maybe
Thought - deep
Calculator - articulation

Sunday 18th January - It ain't time to worry yet

I've been rather flattened by another chest infection this past week. I've been keeping a close watch on how I've been getting on, and on Thursday I decided that it was time to clock off for a couple of days. Unfortunately I have no way of cancelling my first class on Thursday mornings, as it is a music club that runs before the school day starts at a local infant school. So I weebled round to the school (it's only a couple of streets away) and did the club, and then weebled home and settled down for a day of sloth on the settee.



The advantage of this enforced inactivity is that I have been able to continue listening to Sissy Spacek reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird', in her lovely, lovely American accent. She's been keeping me company when I've been lying awake at nights propped up on three pillows. I was feeling slightly guilty when I treated myself to the CD set a couple of months ago, but I'm so glad that I did.
(I hadn't realized that it only became available as an ebook and audiobook in July 2014

 My word, what a book. what writing. I love the sound of

'Dr Reynold's step was young and brisk. Mr Heck Tate's was not. His heavy boots punished the porch and he opened the door awkwardly....'

The phrase 'It ain't time to worry yet' is repeated eight times through the book, read in a gentle, soothing drawl. Here are a few of them; you need to say them in your head in that slow, sing-song, almost sleepy Southern sound;

'Don't worry, Scout, it ain't time to worry yet,' said Jem. He pointed. 'Looka yonder....' Atticus was standing with his hands in his pockets.

... it was not time to worry yet. I waited until it was time to worry and listened for Mr Radley's shotgun.

'Hush, Scout,' he said. 'It ain't time to worry yet. I'll let you know when.'  

'Don't you worry about anything,' he said. 'It's not time to worry.'

(That's the advantage of reading it on a Kindle; you can choose 'search this book' from the menu to find a particular phrase.)

I've enjoyed hearing the book read to me so much, that I've downloaded it onto my Kindle to read it again for myself. The words are somehow multidimensional. This could be because I have a memory of the film (must try and watch it again somehow) and now the sound of Sissy Spacek's voice. But I think it is mainly because of the strength of Harper Lee's powerful writing, and the way the story builds.

I've also taken that phrase 'It ain't time to worry yet. I'll let you know when' to heart. Along with Julian of Norwich's famous saying '...All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well'.

And so shall I be, soon. Well, that is. Another couple of days of 'containing myself in patience' and I'll be beating out 'Samba, samba, we love to samba' on my drum again. 

Saturday 1st March - First Day of Spring

And also St David's Day.

We have daffodils outside the front door now

and some of the very elderly (and confused?) cherry trees in our road have been in blossom for several weeks.

I hadn't realised that the anenomes in the pot by the front door

close up at night

 

rather like I do. I've been alert and ready and energetic first thing all this week, but feeling bug-eyed with tiredness by the time I've taught the last pupil and finished the evening meal.

 

I'm glad to be back at work, though, after the past few weeks. Not working is really nice, provided that I can fill my time with MY choice of activities - my choice of chilling out, or being busy. Enforced idleness has been a bit of a challenge!

 



Saturday 18th January - Stroke Recovery continues

A couple of days ago I received an email from my father about another remarkable stage in my mother's recovery.

She can now raise herself from seated in the wheelchair to standing, and lower herself back down again, without any assistance. Today she remained in her standing frame (a wooden contraption with a couple of support straps) for half an hour - that's a reasonable length of time for anyone to stand still in one place - you try it sometime!

She can now transfer from bed to wheelchair by shuffling across much more securely, with less assistance and support, given by one trained carer, or my father. The hope is that the hoist will soon be surplus to requirements.

They are now talking about fixing a "grab handle" to the bedroom wall, so that she will be able to hold on to it for support while transferring from one wheelchair to another etc.

The stroke happened 15 months ago. There is little more that can be done medically; my mother has a problem with clearing her chest, as her muscles are weakened by the stroke and she cannot cough effectively. However the physiotherapy is proving to be worth every penny. Not only is her strength and mobility improving, all the exercise and standing (she practises in the standing frame nearly every day) is having a beneficial effect on her digestion and her chest.

We only have to look back at how things were when she came out of hospital 11 months ago to see just how much better things are these days.  

Wednesday 6th November - Pay Attention in future...

This was really, really annoying.

I'm making another strip for the Tunisian crochet blanket, in a boucle yarn which was chosen for the blue colours that remind me of the water above and below the Niagara Falls.

I laid it out on the table to admire my progress...

and instantly spotted that it has lost a substantial amount of WIDTH.

To rip it out, or not to rip it out? The difference in width is actually nearly an inch.

So, I ripped. Ow! It hurt, really badly. All that work, gone, gone, gone.

About half of the strip returned to a single strand. It would have been a good idea if I had checked what I was doing more often.

At least, with Tunisian Crochet, you only need to pick up ONE stitch.

BUT, tempted as I was to pretend that "it will be all right when I sew the strips together", I knew that it wouldn't work out. So I'm glad I managed to take the path of righteousness, earlier rather than later.

Moral - PAY ATTENTION to what you are doing!

Sunday 6th October - The New Quilt

I started at about 9am, and gently chugged on through the day. It's going to be good to clear another "pending" project - a couple more days should see it finished.

It started with a rash purchase of a packet of cotton squares (reduced, of course, that's why I couldn't resist it!) from Oxfam, about a year ago.

From time to time I laid them out, but couldn't think how to use them. There were so many that I didn't like very much. (There are two or three of each fabric)

In the end, I decided the best thing to do would be just whang them together, any-old-how, and let them get on with each other as best they could. However, when I started doing the calculations, there weren't going to be enough for a quilt cover. I had a rummage through my boxes of bits and pieces, and found a full-length blue flowery batik print cotton dress, of a similar weight to the Oxfam squares, that I bought years ago. It is a wrap-over sun-dress that never fitted properly and tended to unwrap itself too often for happiness.

I also found a piece of old yellow duvet cover that I had dyed blue; it's really much bluer than this photograph. So that was the backing solved. An old cot blanket, that came with the second-hand cot I bought for my son, would be the padding. I much prefer re-using things as much as possible when I make quilts.

The blanket needed de-fluffing and washing, so I used a damp rubber glove to remove the fur and fluff, and washed it in the bath (the washing machine filter is blocked, remember?). I left it on the line to drip.

It was a glorious day

I was delayed by not being able to find my shoes. In the end I just wallowed around in His shoes for the short trip to the line and back.

The squares from the dress worked perfectly; I made up the horizontal strips, but was a little worried that I wouldn't have enough of them, so I added a spare strip from the dress to the top and the bottom. It took a bit of fiddling around to decide where the strips should go, and in the end I got fed up and just sewed them together.

 

 

Here's the finished top, with another go at photographing the backing fabric. I've added another strip from the dress to the middle, just in case there still wasn't enough length. I can adjust it later when I layer everything up together. All finished by 6pm, with breaks for emails and television and lunch and tea and whenever I felt like doing something different.

Wednesday 2nd October - Sulking

The Man of the House was away for a few days on business. The household technology seemed to have started sulking at his absence.

Problem 1
About two hours after the very early morning taxi took him away, the washing machine beeped sadly and displayed the code which means the filter right at the back at the furthest reach of someone with very, very, long arms was now blocked. I managed to get the sodden soapy washing out, and empty the water out of the machine without drenching the kitchen, but that was as much as I could manage. Luckily I had already dealt with the mountain of washing over-filling the laundry basket, so I didn't have to do any washing for a while.

Problem 2

The television displayed a message to the effect that it wanted re-tuning. "Now, or later?" As advised by The Man of the House, I chose "now". After some time, the message "Cannot find any programs; this television is now de-tuned" came up.

Too true; the on-screen guide came up as a complete blank.

Problem 3
An email from work demanded that I send in a photo of myself for a new ID card NOW and TODAY. To be fair, we had been asked a month ago to provide this; and after a couple of failed attempts at "selfies", The Man of the House had taken quite a nice one. "Email it to me" I asked "because then I will be sure to find it. "No need, it is in Pictures=>your folder=>Photo-ID so you will find it easily".

No it wasn't, and I couldn't find it.

Problem 4
I was updating the lesson plans for all my schools on my laptop, and discovered the folder for one of my schools had completely disappeared. Gone. Not there at all. Took several deep breaths and instructed myself not to panic.


This looked like rebellion from various items of technology, all resenting The Man's trip away.

However, I have managed to retune the television (loud Hurrahs). And along the way I discovered the "settings" menu for the television.

And I have found out how to search an entire computer (you start by googling "how do I find lost folders on my computer". That way you find out that you need to type what you are looking for in a little box at the bottom of the "start" menu.

The photograph I needed seemed to be in a folder inside "pictures" called "Dover". Of course.
And the school lesson plans had taken up residence in another folder called AAAAdmin2012. Naturally.

Just the washing machine to go, then.

Hopefully things will be returning to normal soon!

Saturday 25th May - Invalid, Disabled, Paralysed

I've always been aware of the two-edged meaning of the word "invalid". I can remember those funny little three-wheeled cars that people used to drive around in. I have a feeling that they were barely road-worthy, with a horrible tendency to fall over if one drove them with verve or spirit, (qualities which "invalids" were not supposed to possess anyway). I suppose they were a lot better than what had gone before - i.e. nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalid_carriage



It was the alternative meaning of "not-valid" that I found so offensive in this context, and I would have thought that many disabled people would have taken the same view.

 

http://www.wheelpower.org.uk/WPower/index.cfm/what-we-do/our-sports-associations/

 

The 2012 Paralympics did a lot to reframe the way in which "disabled" people were viewed. 

 

The modern tendency is to focus on "ability" rather than "dis-ability", to look at what someone CAN do, rather than what they CAN'T do. We look for ways around mobility or functional problems so that horizons expand, rather than contract.

 

I have NEVER thought of my mother as being "disabled", or an "invalid" as a result of the stroke. In the hospital, they referred to her left side as being "disregarded", rather than "paralysed". This phrase caught me by surprise, but makes perfect sense. Not only that, it gives hope for the future.   

 

My understanding of what happens after a stroke is based on the real-life experiences of my friends. So I assumed, right from the very first day, that each "state" that my mother was in - semi-conscious, or confused, or suffering from cramps, or unable to sit up, or unable to stand, was temporary, and that over time she would move on to the next stage. Progress would be partly from natural healing, and partly from effort of will, partly from sheer bloody-minded determination, and partly from rehabilitation. 

 

She is much more "able" now that she was even a couple of months ago.

 

For example: her handwriting is legible and she writes letters to friends and family every week. She can read a whole novel and manipulate the pages of the book. She can sit up unsupported. She can take my father, step-by-step through cooking delicious meals. Her right hand is extraordinarily dexterous (is that a tautology?). She does her own makeup, styles her hair herself, every day. 

 

The most recent development is that she is able to lift her left knee - it takes a huge effort of will at the moment, but I am sure that it will become easier as she practises. It must be something like learning to play a difficult chord in a new piano piece - to begin with, one has no control over the notes that you are trying to play, but with patient repetition, the movements become more familiar, until eventually one can play the chord without any thought. 

 

Paralysed?

Disabled?

An invalid?

I don't think so. 

 

Let's go for

 

Disregarded left side (which seems to be coming back a bit)

Reduced mobility (which seems to be improving)

Invalid - NEVER!

 

   

 

 

Monday 13th May - Wednesday 15th May - Relentless Optimism?

On Monday I managed to carve out an hour in the morning and caught up with a friend that I used to spend a lot of time with when our children were primary school age.

We were talking about this and that, and she commented on my "relentless optimism".

That set me thinking. Is this a Good Thing? All these Silver Linings? Looking on the Bright Side? Glass always half full? Am I just maddeningly and infuriatingly cheerful All the Time?

To be honest, I don't know how I would get through life at all if I didn't think like this. It is a deliberate act of will, this "staying cheerful" business. And pretty hard work too.

There have been times of tears. I can remember them from when I was about 8 years old, and 10 years old, and the first nights at boarding school, and Sunday evenings when I worked in a job I hated, and the consequences of working too long and too late for too many weeks in a job that terrified me, and when the children were small, and when they were teenagers, and when I was fearful for my own future, and since our family life became over-shadowed by my mother's stroke. Don't get me wrong - I'm not faking it. I'm not "in denial". I'm not plastering over any cracks.

One of the most powerful tools that I use to stay positive is to look at the natural world and marvel. How many shades of green are there in the trees around me! Look at the flowers, properly. The shades, the veins, the colours, the shapes, the variety. How did that all happen?

 

 

How does an acorn hold a whole tree? How do the two cells that form the very first moments of a baby sort themselves into hair and brain and toenails all in the right place? 

I discovered that if I sit and look, really, really, really look, at a leaf, or a pebble, or a tree, for about five or ten minutes, almost committing it to memory, I can restore my soul, refill my glass, regain my strength, and carry on.

Saturday 13th April - The Weekend! On your Marks...

So, here's the program for today, Saturday:

8:30   Husband leaves to take daughter to the station - she has the chance of a morning's overtime
9:00   Husband continues into town to get his hair cut. Meanwhile I settle down at the lap-top to catch up with the lesson planning I need to get done for the new term
10:00 Husband reappears (with tidy hair-cut and neatly trimmed beard) and the pair of us zoom off to collect a shirt which has been repaired, find a suitable protective case for my new mp3 player (the local stores don't have any), try and find him a new pair of shoes as his weekend shoes have started squelching in wet weather), and buy the "marinated ham, about the size of a small fist", and some parma ham and Serrano ham, sold by Lidl which my mother has been after for several weeks now.

The location for dealing with all these errands is about an hour's drive away, which means that we get to spend some uninterrupted time in each other's company.

10:45 We arrive at the retail park on the edge of the city. It is raining, but we don't care - much. The first three shops fail to produce the mp3 cover, but the expedition to Lidl is successful - we hope.
11:10  We relocate to the theatre car park, pick up the shirt, check the shoes in that shop - no luck. Brisk walk through the drizzle and check out two more shoe shops in quick succession. I'm in danger of being arrested anti-social behaviour as my patience with other pedestrians is running dangerously low. Dodging pedestrians we circle past a brass band playing a James Bond medley in the rain and go to Maison Blanc. They have the best coffee eclairs, so in spite of the restless bustle inside the café, I am happy.
11:30  With around 30 minutes left before we need to be heading for home, we stride down East Street to a camera shop. The brass band has dissolved - it is nowhere to be seen. Just a tuba case propped up against a pillar of the Butter Cross. At the far end of the street, I get a suitable case for my mp3 player, he gets a wrist strap for his camera. It is still raining. We zig-zag through the quiet backstreets, blessedly deserted.
12:00  Back at the car park. Homeward bound.
12:15  Having agreed to collect daughter from place of work at 1:30, we have just enough time to divert through a business estate to check out a supplier of home care equipment. We find the place - it is huge, and probably has everything anyone could every need. It is also closed.
1:35  Collect daughter, return to home town
2:00  Park in home town, go to shopping centre. By ready meals for parents, socks for husband, have 2:45  Lunch - toasted sandwiches.
3:20  It is still raining. Head across town towards shop to buy wheelchair rain-poncho.
4:15  Arrive at parent's flat, for FIRST WHEELCHAIR OUTING WITH MY MOTHER! Maybe a damp, squelchy Saturday afternoon is not the best day, but for various reasons, today's the day!
(It is raining!). My Mother is being prepared for the trip by the carers; gloves, scarf, thick warm socks. "Where's my lipstick? Can't go out without putting on some lipstick!"

All five of us embark upon a complex adventure.

My Father manages to manoeuvre himself and my mother and the wheelchair into the tiny lift. The wheelchair only fits in with the foot-rests removed. We go down the stairs carrying the foot rests and the poncho and a couple of umbrellas.

We arrive all together at the bottom, and parents and wheelchair emerge. Daughter holds the heavily sprung door open, while my Father extricates the two ramps from the locked store cupboard and sets them up. I replace the footrests and arrange the poncho over my mother. We are deliberately not providing much help, as the idea is to discover how easy or difficult it is going to be for my Father to manage.

It's a success - we are all outside. Now the ramps have to be replaced in the cupboard so that the door can be closed, and finally we are on the move. For a first outing, we are happy to go round to the front of the flats, look at the lake and the daffodils, and then return. (Ramps out of the cupboard and placed in the door way, push wheelchair up, ramps back into the cupboard, remove footrests, manoeuvre into the lift), we trot up the stairs, Aaaargh - the front wheels of the wheelchair have lodged themselves into the gap between the lift compartment and the landing. There is no way for my father to come round to free the wheels. We could easily solve the problem from the landing, but it is important to find a way out which does not need our help. (Correction to original post here in blue: There is a moment of  agitation; my Husband quickly assists by supporting my Mother's foot and moving it clear of the lift doors, and lifting the front wheel clear by brute force. My father could not see the problem fully - next time, we will know that what he needs to do is to squeeze himself against the back wall of the lift in order to pull the wheelchair back a smidgeon and tilt the front wheels up and all will well. This is what the exercise today is all about - discovering the problems and working out solutions when there is plenty of time, and there are plenty of us around to help.)
5:15  We are back in the flat.
5:30   Glass of sustenance in hand, we review the exercise, and plan how we will manage better next time. The adventure is pronounced a success. Parents are tired out, but triumphant.

6:ish   Husband, daughter and self leave.  

Then it was Evening, and Night time, and the Next Day.

Sunday won't be a day of rest either!

Monday 25th March - Life in Flatland

A brief long update on how my mother is getting on, for friends and family.


Maybe it should be on "how we are all getting on" - it affects all of us in one way or another.

She came back to the flat in the beginning of February, with carers coming in four times a day, some one living in for the first ten days to provide cover at night and for some of the day time (a private arrangement), and visits by all kinds of people; social workers, district nurses, the doctor, audiologists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists and others too numerous to keep track of. My father's calendar became covered in post it notes as the appointments for one day over flowed into the next. Each day seemed to be a ceaseless round of telephone calls, and making arrangements for this that and the other, including getting out to do the shopping.
"The sight of your father with a garlic press - well, that is something to behold" commented my mother as he wrestled with producing delicious meals...

I went in whenever I could - before starting work, or in a lunchtime gap between schools, and at weekends. My brother drove down for a couple of days, or even just a day, most weeks. Our cousin came over from France for a long weekend.   

Night-times, to begin with, were very difficult. The various medications made my mother confused and also seemed to cause vivid and disturbing dreams; one night she managed to completely turn herself round in bed so that her head end was at the foot and and vice versa - how did she manage that, when she is unable to use her left arm and leg? And however did they manage to turn her round again? Every couple of days would bring a new problem which needed sorting.

Steadily, over the weeks, an enormous improvement has taken place. The physiotherapists have been brilliant, and arranged for the "string-em-up-in-a-hammock" style hoist to be replaced by one that eases the patient into a supported standing position. We have now been trained to use this hoist ourselves, or order to give my mother extra "standing up" practise between physiotherapy sessions. There is definite progress; last week in one session she was able to get from sitting in the wheelchair to standing, using the foot of the bed as a support. It took a fair bit of skill and effort from the physiotherapist - but whoopee - that's progress!

The first 6 weeks of "home" are over, and all the initial arrangements for care by the hospital have been replaced by the new "here's your budget, how will you spend it?" system. The new care team have been coming for five days now, and so far, so good. The physiotherapy exercises assigned for between visits are well underway too. It's a painful process; as well as the cramps that have plagued her since the very beginning, she is now gtting pins and needles, and burning sensations, and itching in the affected side of the body. This is good news in one way, as it means that the brain is trying to connect with the limbs. But it hurts!

The medications have been adjusted and the night times are less confused, and the overnight carer comes just once night a week to give my father a "night off". As my mother improves, he is able to become more relaxed - hopefully, he will be taking the opportunity to go out for a while when the carers are there in the morning - maybe shopping, maybe for a walk, maybe to just have a coffee and some time to "go offline". Meanwhile he is getting plenty of training in becoming a cook, under instruction from my mother. Roast lamb, roast chicken, home-made cottage pie  - and very occasionally the odd ready-meal!

I'm looking forward to warmer weather, when we can think about going out - squeezing the wheelchair into the lift the first few times will be a learning curve, because it is such an exact fit. Meanwhile my mother can watch the children running to and from school, keep an eye on the pigeons, birds and squirrels, and check out what the people in the flats opposite are doing (mostly ironing, or watching what their  neighbours are doing!)

Slowly, things are becoming more known, more understood, and, I can definitely say, better.

Saturday 9th March - Love and Temperament

We've been married for long enough now to get used to each other.

I try and view our natures as "complementary", rather than as "opposites".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boutet_1708_color_circles.jpg

So, in trying out certain kinds of ideas, such as home improvements, rearrangements of furniture, new colour schemes, my approach tends to be "let's give it a go!" I tend to plunge in, and do an experimental dry wet run. I reckon to try it all out using cheap approximations of what I am aiming for in order to get a feel for how it works. A quick trip to the shops, chuck everything that's in the way into the empty bath to clear a space, push, shove, pull, rip, cut, stick and hey presto. Then leave the debris everywhere because I'm plumb tuckered out. Let's go out for fish and chips tonight.

Once I've done it, I'll then know how it should have been done, and will be in a good position to go for the final solution. Makes perfect sense to me. I need to touch and feel and see the change in order to know what it is I really wanted.

The major, major, and insuperable flaw in this approach is, that having created the bodged together, string-and-sealing-wax solution, rickety-tickety oozy-woozy version, I will lose interest, and just let everything stop there. Somehow, I won't have significantly improved the situation. Let's be truthful. Everything is a thousand times worse than if I had left things well alone.

So what's his approach? It takes time. It involves asking and considering answers to lots of questions. It involves patience and research and investigation and measuring, lots and lots of measuring. There's all that visiting different shops WITHOUT buying anything. Pieces of paper. Plans. MORE measurements.

Then, in a weekend, or a day, or even a few hours of intense activity, the solution is implemented, in one go, everything is tidied away, and IT WORKS and is pretty near perfect.

After 35 years, I'm beginning to go with his methods. The waiting around, and the delays drive me insane with impatience, but I'm learning. His way is much better.

Usually..... 

   
 

Sunday 27th January - the year of broken things

Assuming that we start from the beginning of the church year - Advent - the following breakages have occurred in this household, causing greater, or occasionally lesser, inconvenience.

DECEMBER
1 various headlights and sidelights on my car - fixed yesterday (thank you kindly, Best Beloved)

2 The brand new Christmas lights failed the day after we put the tree up. This one could have been a real pain, except that we were able to take just the transformer section back to the garden centre, check it on their lights, and bring back a replacement. It would have been Very Annoying if we had had to undress the tree to remove the lights.

3 the washing machine started flashing all kinds of warning lights on Christmas Eve. A bit of heavy lifting and mucky draining on Christmas Morning dealt with the blocked filter.

4 the cooker - failed spectacularly on Christmas Day. This is worth a mega blog post on its own - the fourth, and maybe final? engineering visit is scheduled for Tuesday. Meanwhile it has been the recipient of a new element and a new fan so far, and is due a replacement motherboard (!). Cue a serious of rotten puns about how this mother is bored of waiting for the motherboard, and a Flanders and Swann classic;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOA_SUKEZRE (courtesy of boggyb)

JANUARY
5 the electric wall switch for the cooker (that's how the engineer discovered that a new element didn't fix the problem)

6 the bathroom light bulb; on investigation it was the ancient light fitting that had also failed. No matter. Bathing by candlelight is quite fun. Brushing one's teeth by torchlight is quite manageable. For a day. Or two. Or until the weekend.

7 The top drawer of the freezer fell out. It missed my foot, so that didn't get broken, but the drawer is missing a few bits of plastic

8 the warning light, saying various lights on my car are not working, is still glowing, redly, untruthfully, malevolently, in spite of All the bulbs being replaced and checked.

9 Our telephone handset; suddenly started feeling too hot to touch when removed from the base station unit. The new telephones are ok. I'll get used to the rather aggressive ring sound in time. There was a choice of 32 noises. The worst might have been the electronic rendition of Mozart's Turkish Rondo. Rendered is a good choice of word for the noise.

10 My sweet, darling, gorgeous, wonderful, idiosyncratic mp3 player. I use it every day when teaching, and at night, when I can't sleep, Joan Hickson reading "Miss Marple" stories sends me off in minutes. (DON'T rely on Peter Sallis reading Hercule Poirot to make you sleepy; his reading is too entertaining as somehow the accents of Grommit and M Poirot are hopelessly entangled). I had thought I was going to have to buy a new mp3 player today, but Best Beloved managed to force it to reset, and rebuilt it with all my music intact.

11 The nifty little LED clip-on spot we bought from IKEA has taken to twinkling in a most unsatisfactory way. Maybe flickering or wavering would be better descriptions. We have unplugged it pending further investigation.

12 Going to bed last night, BB opened a drawer in the chest of drawers. However the whole drawer front came off in his hands, leaving the rest of the drawer still in the chest, so to speak. No matter. In due course some wood glue and a little application of time and patience should sort that.

That's a round dozen. Admittedly 1, 4, 6, 9 and 10 are on the "done" list, leaving just 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, and 12 on the "outstanding" list.

We are NOT amused.

Addendum. Also broken is my ability to work out what has been mended and what has been fixed. BB has just pointed this out to me. I could now delete or correct the relevant paragraph, but I know The Man Across The Pond is going to enjoy spotting all my errors, so I'll leave them in for him.

Wednesday 12/12/12 - When I grow up...

When I grow up - which means when I no longer spend all my days teaching music - when means that I AM a grown up for 13 weeks of the year, come to think of it (two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, six weeks in the summer, and the three half terms in between) - when I grow up, I'm going to spend all my time painting the sky.

Oh ha ha, yeah, I heard the one about a long enough ladder yesterday. You are too late.

The skies are a feature of the daily roistering through the countryside from one school to the next. I am constantly distracted by wondering how I would go about recreating the effect of clouds, shading, colours, tree silhouettes...

Inks, probably, for the intense blues of late dusk. Indian ink for the silhouettes of the trees, washed over with every shade of blue garnets. I love Jan Pienkowski's illustrations:



http://www.janpienkowski.com/books/silhouette/1001/1001nights.htm

Watercolours for grey clouds. There is an amazing gif of a bird drawing created from water and ink. http://salt4life.tumblr.com/post/22692302005/i-make-gifs (I found it courtesy of JohntheLutheran's tumblr site.)



I WANT to do this! The clouds were exactly like this a few days ago, not like birds, OBVIOUSLY but pale at the top and heavy with rain at the bottom edge.

Water colour pencils for early morning skies; pinks, blues, even a touch of yellow; all pale, delicate pastels. This kind of thing, but the colours more connected, less pencil-stroky. I hope Vivienb (whoever she is) won't mind me copying it here...

http://vivienb.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/sennen-cove-cornwall-dawn-coloured.html

I'm going to have to follow her blog; http://vivienb.blogspot.co.uk/
just check out these cats:  http://vivienb.blogspot.co.uk/p/cats.html

Anyway, back on topic...

Acrylics for the hot deep blue skies with bright white clouds in Summer? Can't remember. Summer was so long ago.   



The only problem is that it will take time... time...                                 and   patience.

Patience is what we will all need - my mother, the staff, us family... She is working away at getting better; a brace to straighten her knee, exercises, enduring sitting in a chair, coping with The Hoist, a lifty thing that is used to swing patients in and out of bed. We tried playing patience the other night; I dealt the cards, and she shifted them about, or indicated what needed to be moved where. I suppose that's a mini-step on the road to returning to the bridge club?

Wednesday 21st November - Where now?

Today I have driven through rain and rain and rain along byways and back roads and lanes.... travelling from the school I teach at On Wednesday afternoons, to the hospital to visit my mother. I don't usually go in the afternoon, midweek, but we were having a meeting with the consultant.

I mithered over how to get to the hospital - google said it's route would take 38 mins, along roads that I had never been along before. The alternative - backtracking until I could join the route I know - would have taken too long. In then end, I followed the google maps route. The roads were empty enough that it was possible for me to snatch quick glances at the printouts of the maps as I went along, and in the end I only missed one turning. Par for the course.

Coming back, it was dark, and I always get hopelessly confused trying to get through the muddled mixture of roundabouts and turnoffs in the main town that I have to somehow traverse. It is complicated by a roundabout with a bus lane right through the middle: an approaching bus with suddenly switch ALL traffic lights abruptly to red (all entrances and exits from the roundabout a traffic-light controlled) while it thunders straight across without any reduction in speed.

I'm always phased by this roundabout, and tonight I exited too early, tried to get back on track and ended up hopelessly entangled in the "Leisure Complex" - a labyrinthine car park serving a mish-mash of cinemas, bowling alleys, fitness centres and restaurants. I extricated myself with great difficulty, and plunged straight into interminable traffic queues on the final stretch of dual carriageway, stretching for miles.




We all crawled along, first merging into one lane, then forced to merge into another lane, and then faced with these two signs...  Luckily, the finale of the Mozart Piano concerto in E flat for two pianos started on Radio 3, and I managed to remain optimistic that the nightmare would end.






So, where now, with my mother? The consultant says she is making good progress, only time will tell, she is medically stable and ready to move to another hospital where they have a special stroke rehab unit - all well and good. It is far too soon to make decisions, frame thoughts, form ideas about what the future may hold. I am worried about whether she will regain movement in her left side - any movement? some movement? or not at all? Her repeated insistence that her left side has always been weak doesn't bode well, unless we manage to galvanise her into making a real effort. If she has always been in the habit of not using her left hand, then it will be so much harder to rebuild the connections. Time. Patience. Hope. Count blessings; speech, swallowing, memories, conversation, ability to read and absorb information. We have been very lucky.  

Thursday 15th November - time sliding by - hospital food

Oh well. Missed three days! I've failed the National Blog Promotion Month Challenge good and proper now!

The days are concatenating into a confused jumble; I can only sort out what has happened by thinking through who which schools I have visited, day by day, and then trying to add in the missing bits. This morning I discovered that I was sitting all curled up in a corner of the settee in the morning, like one of the cats, staring at the television breakfast news without actually taking in the newsweathertrafficreports...

It's not the juggling of the timetables and schedules that finishes me off - although it is pretty wearing. It's the little last-minute adaptations that crash the system and derail the train of thought.

On Monday's hospital visit was very unsatisfactory - I think we only spent about 10 minutes with my mother, and that was all rather confused and disconnected.

On Tuesday we didn't go; my brother was staying overnight so he went with my father. The news was all right - and all right should be good enough, but it isn't somehow. They had a discussion with the medics, who basically said what we were all expecting - making progress, too soon to know, be patient...

On Wednesday we arrived before supper had been cleared away - my word! Grim doesn't begin to describe it, especially arriving fresh from watching Masterchef on television. Under the cover was a soup plate containing a flattened dollop of pinky-beige puree (chicken casserole?), a flattened dollop of pale green puree (peas?), and a flattened dollop of grey-white puree (potato?). Not surprisingly it was untouched. There was also a mug of vegetable soup, an good colour, but the flavour so delicate as to be undetectable. I know, because I tried it. Ugh. I do appreciate the difficulties of providing interesting, delicious, appetising purees, en masse, to be transported on heated trolleys - but my mother is an excellent cook. She serves up roast lamb, chicken liver pate, sauerkraut with three kinds of pork, potatoes with cream and nutmeg, broad beans in mustard sauce, jugged hare, fresh fish, home-made curry, steak-and-kidney pie, nasi goreng....

Depresssed, I called in at Tescos this afternoon to try and find something better. I bought a couple of sachets of superior baby food to test, and also some soup which I planned to heat, thicken with extra potato and puree, and take with me, still warm, in a flask.

Before I could construct there soup, I heard from my father that she had lasagne for lunch - real food, cut into small pieces - and found it perfectly adequate. Oh Wow! She had the stroke on 30th October, and was nil-by-mouth for the first week. Now, 15 days after it all happened, she is eating real food!

She also looks better and seems so much more alert. She can remember how to operate the tablet that we got for her at Christmas to look at pictures and discuss the work that is happening at the flat (renovating the kitchen and bathroom) with plenty to contribute.

What a great way to finish off the week.

Not sure who gets to eat the baby food...

   

Tuesday 6th November - The Waiting Game

Waiting is an art form in itself.

I was taught "waiting" at the convent primary school I went to: standing in line waiting for school dinners. I can remember that we lined up in a maze of interconnecting corridors that ended in the dining room. We were allowed to chat in whispers, but were expected to stand still and not mill around or swap places.

The reward for such patience was mixed: it might be something really good, and ending with sponge pudding and custard. It might be spinach, slimy and gritty, or "red" cabbage, boiled to a pale dove grey stringiness. The convent grew acres and ACRES of spinach and red cabbage. I used to see them in threatening rows in the vegetable garden, my heart sinking as I contemplated forthcoming harvest.

Being able to sit and wait patiently is a valuable skill. However, it throws you upon your own resources, especially if you haven't brought anything to fill the time.

I'm a great one for chatting to whoever is sitting next to me, if we are both feeling sociable. Otherwise, I might use the time to plan things - menus, Christmas present lists, lesson plans, holiday plans. It is easier to make lists if I have pencil and paper, otherwise thing fall out of my mind as fast as I try and slot them in.

Sometimes I "play" music through in my head, or revisit favourite places or walks.

I went through a phase of trying to learn poetry, but this is not a skill that I have developed to any great level. Like learning songs, I know the tunes but not the words. Most of the songs I have learnt are the ones I teach all the time: "Bee, bee, bumble bee, stung a man upon his knee, stung a pig upon his snout, I say you're out" or "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I see tonight". Short, and quite sweet, but hardly "literature"!

My mother is having to spend hours and hours just waiting. During the day there is a fair bit going on - doctor's rounds, observations, physio, speech therapy, occupational therapy fills a certain amount of time, but in between, and in wakeful night-time hours she is thrown on her own resources. I wasn't able to visit her today, but I heard that she was moved from her bed to the chair for a while. That will have made it easier to see what was happening around her. She had a go at reading a book, and has asked for a "Good Food" magazine. The CD player and headphones have made a great difference, and the steady stream of get well cards is very, very important. I am telling everyone to keep them coming. Next week, and the week after is when they will bring a welcome breath of the outside world into the slow, constant, unchanging rhythm of hospital life.

Friday 10th August - The Skill of Waiting Patiently



http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/possess



Yesterday I spent hours and hours just waiting. Literally. It was a "clinic day", which means going to London for a routine check up, and also the various tests to do with the drug trial I am in. The clinic visit usually takes a longish time, and involves a lot of sitting around waiting. Yesterday was no exception, so I wasn't unduly surprised that, having arrived at 9am in order to get the drug trial tests and consultations completed before the actual clinic appointment at 10:45, it was still well after 1pm before I left the hospital.

There we were, all facing each other, seated in two rows of uncomfortable chairs along the basement corridor between the consulting rooms. We were all in a reasonably patient, resigned frame of mind. Every so often a door would open, and a name be called, and a little sigh escape from those of us left to wait a little longer. Actually, to wait a lot longer. No-one complained. We could all see that the consultants and staff were working as fast as they could, and at the same time, giving each of us as much time as we needed.

After all, we were only there for a morning. The hospital staff would be facing the same long queues of people day after day after day.

I wouldn't have commented any of this at all, if I hadn't googled the phrase "possess yourself in patience" to check I had remembered it correctly. It is the eighth of nine definitions of "possess"; what made me smile were the words in green!