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The start of something new?
Done little today, apart from, all being well, buy a house. The vendors accepted my offer so now I have to phone my solicitor on Monday and contact a surveyor. I'll visit the house again next week for a more detailed inspection in case there are defects to which I wish to draw the surveyors attention, e.g. the crack in the plaster I noticed in the breakfast room. If the sale goes ahead the breakfast room will be used for all meals.
My father's internal thermostat must be faulty. I'm dressed for summer in shorts and t-shirt; my father is dressed for winter in vest, long-sleeved shirt, long-sleeved sweater, thick trousers and slipper boots. He sits in his chair all day with a blanket wrapped over his legs, and complains of the draft if anyone opens a door to go out of the house. My mother and I are roasting.
I found a great slab of some man-made stone under a bookcase in the sitting room today, covered with dust, of course. That's now in the garage waiting to start its journey to be buried.
The local council is becoming concerned about the way it deals with residents' rubbish. It has realised that depositing it all in landfill sites is unsustainable. Beats me why anyone would have considered that a sustainable method. Soon we will not be able to dump as much rubbish as we currently do (legally that is). Things will change.
Thought for today
We live and learn, but not the wiser grow.
John Pomfret (1667 - 1702) Reason, 1700
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10.6.06 20:34
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The royal we
My mother and brother are prone to saying 'We will do this, we will do that,' without specifying the identity of the other or others to whom they are referring. I suspect they mean me. We will put the house on the market; we will get a house clearance firm to empty it. They never say who is to decide what is to go, or who is to clean the place when it's empty. Time will tell.
My mother's eyesight slowly worsens. Today she said that she sometimes tries to pick up sunlight from the ground.
She is trying to get my father to realise that he has to go into a care home soon. 'But if I go into a care home, I'll do bugger all,' he said today. He does that already. 'And then I'll pop my clogs.' He is 89 in October.
Some people are martyrs to fashion. Today's Observer has an item entitled 'Party in the park'. It says ' Take centre stage this festival season in classic hippy style,' and shows photos of six outfits that look like those bought from an Oxfam shop, though not at Oxfam prices. A skimpy blue dress costs £205. For the cost of all the outfits, someone could buy an Oxfam shop.
Thought for today
Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004) British actor and author
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11.6.06 20:46
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Help the aged
Can there be a more depressing image of old age than is conjured by the name of 'Help the Aged?' Alexandra Frean
I don't follow that. If 'Save the Children' is OK, why not 'Help the Aged'? Help the Chronologically Challenged is too long.
How you fare in old age is determined largely by your lifestyle, how much effort you put into it, how much thought you give to your future; how you adapt to change. Old age doesn't have to be depressing. We all know we're going to die someday. Old age shouldn't come as a surprise.
I bought a pair of denim shorts today similar to a pair pictured in yesterday's Observer. The featured pair cost £59.95, mine cost £2.99 from the local Help the Aged shop.
The woman from the care home due to arrive this morning to assess my father never turned up. The story of my life; I am surprised when people do what they say they will. Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, a friend of mine often says, for he shall not be disappointed. Quite. My mother phoned to enquire; the woman was held up training staff and had asked someone to contact us. Now she is due to visit tomorrow morning.
My father likes to watch the news at 6pm. This week it's football. He watched half an hour before deciding it wasn't the news. He told my mother that they ought to take some exercise and go for a walk. She suggested that he went outside and watered the tomatoes. Needless to say he stayed in his chair and, in spite of the heat, kept his blanket wrapped round his legs. I am sweating and am trying not to drip onto this keyboard. My digital thermometer is almost off the scale.
Thought for today
Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.
Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977) Russian-born American novelist
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12.6.06 20:32
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A grand day out
Walked along the Chichester Ship Canal with a group of ramblers from the next village. It rained hard last night and I began to think that the suntan lotion I'd bought yesterday would be unnecessary. However, by the time we arrived at the start of the walk, the sun shone so I slapped on the stuff.
Hadn't bought suntan lotion for years. The numbers on the bottles baffled me. Did 50+ mean the over 50s or the rating of the protection? The cost surprised me too. A bottle for adults cost £10.00, that for kids cost £2.00. Why the difference? I bought a bottle for kids. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me.
The woman from the care home who should have visited yesterday did so today. My mother liked her. The woman thought they would be able to look after my father. He was concerned about his books (he has hundreds). What would happen to them? I asked my mother what he supposed would happen to them after he died. She replied that he says he won't care, he'll be too busy stoking.
Thought for today
Get busy living, or get busy dying.
The Shawshank Redemption, 1994
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13.6.06 20:56
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A grand day out
Walked along the Chichester Ship Canal with a group of ramblers from the next village. It rained hard last night and I began to think that the suntan lotion I'd bought yesterday would be unnecessary. However, by the time we arrived at the start of the walk, the sun shone so I slapped on the stuff.
Hadn't bought suntan lotion for years. The numbers on the bottles baffled me. Did 50+ mean the over 50s or the rating of the protection? The cost surprised me too. A bottle for adults cost £10.00, that for kids cost £2.00. Why the difference? I bought a bottle for kids. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me.
The woman from the care home who should have visited yesterday did so today. My mother liked her. The woman thought they would be able to look after my father. He was concerned about his books (he has hundreds). What would happen to them? I asked my mother what he supposed would happen to them after he died. She replied that he says he won't care, he'll be too busy stoking.
Thought for today
Get busy living, or get busy dying.
The Shawshank Redemption, 1994
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13.6.06 20:57
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Little by little
Got rid of more junk today. Took boxes of books, pots, vases, ornaments, polished stones and a few fossils to someone collecting for Saturday's local fete. None of the things were really junk, but my definition of junk these days is anything unnecessary.
Another container for rubbish arrived from the council this morning bringing the total to four. There's a wheelie bin for general waste, a small black plastic box (with a split in one side) for glass, a bigger, more sturdy container for paper that once had a lid but that has long since disappeared, and the new one which is identical apart from having a piece of netting attached. This one is for tins and plastic bottles. Remembering what goes into each container and the days of the different collections will tax my mother. The wheelie bin will be emptied alternate weeks from the end of the month which means that my father's incontinence pads will remain in there for longer.
Cooler today. Must be the first time for a week that I haven't sweated over this keyboard. My father is back to wearing his long-sleeved sweater.
A carer arrived in the morning to mind my father while my mother went to an out-patients appointment. I went for another look at the house I hope to buy. Judging by the stones scattered on the dining room table when I returned, my father must have given the woman his standard lecture on geology. She was fortunate.
Thought for today
Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession.
Kingman Brewster (1919 - 1988) American ambassador to Britain
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14.6.06 20:56
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A lifeline
Visited another care home this morning with my parents. On the journeys there and back, my father, spotting the flags attached to cars, asked if it was St George's day.
The place had quite a different atmosphere from the other place, the posh place. It was homely; it was organised. We had to wash our hands with alcohol gel on arrival and departure. I gave mine an extra scrub when I reached home. If anyone there got food poisoning, it would be through everyone like a dose of salts. I took no chances.
While we were there, electricians arrived to repair something and wanted to turn off the electricity just as we were about to take the lift to the second floor to see the vacant room. The manager told them to wait for five minutes until we'd used the lift and she'd turned off her computers. Off we set. The lift took such a long time to travel two floors that I began to fear the electricity had already been turned off. My incontinent father was the last person with whom I wished to be stuck in a lift. I was relieved when the door opened. We took the stairs down.
I hope my mother can bring herself to book the room. It will be her chance to escape spending the rest of her married life shovelling shit. She needs to decide soon; the room might not remain vacant for long.
Some of the residents looked gaga. None were shrieking. The thought of ending my days in a place like that filled me initially with gloom. However, if the alternative was staying in my own home unable to maintain it or myself, then I would gladly live there. Practicality comes before pride, and sitting in a pool of shit while all around is dirty and decaying, is nothing to be proud about.
Quote for today
It is a fairly unique position: to have been in charge of prison funding and then to have been an inmate. I wish I'd been more generous.
Jonathon Aitken (1942 - ) British politician
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15.6.06 21:18
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