Going down

A blue hydrangea is not very festive, I know, but it reflects my mood which is a bit blue at the moment. The last ten days have been bitter sweet. The photograph was taken while we were in Cornwall, in June this year, and reminds me of the house that I grew up in which had a blue hydrangea in a half barrel by the front door.

When my mother was found to have fluid on her lung, back in May, I knew then that if she had as many chest infections during this coming winter, as she had over the course of last winter, that she would not see Spring 2012. Last week she succumbed to her third chest infection of the winter. Sadly she died on Saturday December 10. I wasn't quite prepared for this turn of events and if I am honest I am a bit annoyed about the timing. Maybe I am just being selfish, but I would have liked to have quietly enjoyed my last few days at work without having one of life's inevitable dramas going on in the background. That's life. Anyway my mother has taken her final bow and I have now finished work. I suppose that anti-climax is the word that I am looking for.

Please do not be sad, as my mother's death was a blessing in disguise. Her tormented soul is now at peace and the torture that my brother and I have suffered since she had a mini stroke, in May 2006 ago, is over. In many ways my mother really died five and a half years ago. If 20 or 30 years ago my mother could have seen how she would become, she would have had a blue fit. The staff at the nursing home,where she was a resident, were brilliant with her and I would highly recommend it to anyone in this area who has a relative with dementia. They took a load off my mind and certainly made my life as stress free as it could be in the circumstances.

Husband and I returned to the nursing home on Sunday to collect Mum's belongings. We took with us a large suitcase and a bag, but I had underestimated quite how many clothes and bits and pieces she had, so husband returned home to collect another suitcase. While he was gone I had a chat to one of the young carers who had known my mother since she become a resident in the residential home, in April 2009. I was trying to explain to her how difficult it is to watch a parent go down hill in the way that my mother had done over the last few years. There was a bit of a bond between the two of them as they had the same birthday, albeit 70 years apart. Recently she had asked me what my mother had been like before the dementia took hold. Although I would be the first to comment that the person that my mother became after the mini stroke was not the mother that I had known, I found that I really had to think about my answer, as I had accepted her as she had become.

I do not think that my mother ever worked out that she was in a home but in a way she had the last laugh. She had a dislike of lifts and would always use a stair case if possible. Her room was on the second floor and I had always used to stairs to get up and down to it. As we had two large suitcases husband and I decided to come down in the lift. The home is in an old house. The lift is nearly as ancient. It was very very slow and then we realised that it had stopped and we in between floors! It was hot. We pressed all of the buttons and still the lift did not move. It became very hot. I was beginning to get a bit panicky. Then husband said we'll have to press the alarm button which we did. Luckily the nurse in charge had seen us getting into the lift so he knew who was in it. Next we heard a voice asking 'can you jump?' My first thought was 'were to?' We could not get out of the lift. Then the penny drop and I asked if he meant up and down. 'Yes' the voice said. So a couple of jumps and lift descended. That was an experience that I won't forget.

Countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

If I had not known differently I would have thought that yesterday was Friday 13th. We had a right day and a half of it at work. By yesterday lunch time my head was spinning and I do not think that I have ever been as glad to come home as I was last night. I know that the closer we get to Christmas the more manic Fridays will become.  Looking back to a year ago I wrote a post saying that I would not be doing this pre-Christmas holiday work stint again. Well that was what I thought at the time. The work situation has not quite gone to plan and it seems that I just cannot say 'no'. Anyway this really is the last time.

I now have four days left to work before I stop practising. I have been trying to stop practising for about two years now and have been putting off the fateful day for one reason or another. Now that the end is in sight I feel a bit sad. However, there is, now, no going back as I have taken myself off the register from 31 December. In any case I need to be realistic, standing up for eight hours a day is a young person's game. When I was younger I used to stand up all day at work then stand up all night in the pub. Nowadays I rarely get to the pub, even when I am not working. I shall miss the staff that I have worked with but I will not miss the patients. I can live without the hysterics, tantrums and theatricals that relatives and patients sometimes subject us to. Life will be quieter and a little less colourful, but that is how I prefer it. Professional ethics prevent me from going into more detail here.

Whether or not I am working it seems that my presence is going to be felt. Last week one of the assistants claimed to see me upstairs in the stockroom when I was actually downstairs in the dispensary. Even if work does not haunt me, I am going to be haunting work!

I am not quite sure what I am going to do with myself when January comes around, but one thing that is certain is that it will be different to what I have been used to. Before I get myself involved in anything whether paid or voluntary I intend to work my way through the list of jobs in the cottage that  have been ignored or left undone over the last 18 months.

If you are wondering what I have been up to since I last posted, I always struggle to find the time for my blog when I am working and husband is at home, which he is at the moment. Recently most of my spare time has been spent in the garden - weather and light permitting. Autumn is the best time to move plants, in the garden, while the soil is relatively warm after the Summer. Over the last few years we have missed this opportunity which has left us with a lot to do this year.

 

The other big job that we have also done was to take down a dead tree and prune a rather out of hand hawthorn hedge. This left us with a massive pile of prunings (right) to cut up and dispose of. What could not be cut up into logs or kindling for our open fires, was loaded into our garden waste bin and that of our neighbours for several collections.

The Swinging Sixties

I am not big on birthdays and I never have been, but I have just had a big birthday. A landmark birthday. The biggest since I was 21. I had planned to spend the day hot footing it down to the town hall to collect my bus pass. However, back in June I had decided to investigate what would be necessary by looking at the local council's website. I suppose that I was only mildly surprised to find that the goal posts had been moved by the previous government, in April 2010, just before the election and conveniently swept under the carpet. I do not now become eligible for a bus pass until I qualify for the state pension which is 19 months away.  Some councils have chosen not to implement this change and have decided to absorb the cost. I know why our local council has implemented it. The chief executive is paid more than the prime minister plus five figure bonuses for poor performance. That is where my bus pass has gone! Discovering that I would not collect my state pension when I expected to was, again, something that I found out by lucky accident when shortly before husband hit 60 I decided to investigate my state pension situation. I do remember murmurings, by the previous government, about changes to the pension age but they kept quiet about the decisions that they made. At the very least they could have written to those affected by the change. The Cameron government are being open and honest about the changes that they are making. So hopefully there should be no more nasty surprises.

I am not really in any hurry for my bus pass and state pension. I do not feel old and I do not think that I look old. Although the last time that I visited my mother in the nursing home one of the residents asked me if I was the new lady, meaning a new resident. 'No' I quickly replied 'I'm a visitor'. I thought 'do I look like I belong here?' Most of the residents look as if the got dressed in the dark, in crumpled unco-ordinating clothes. I was wearing a white blouse, blue striped cardigan and denims. (Note to self - wear a mini skirt for next visit to the nursing home).Sadly there is a lady in the nursing home who does not look much older than me.

Some perks have been left unchanged. Eye tests and prescriptions are now free. However, I am hoping not to be ill. Then there is the B&Q Diamond card that offers discount on Wednesdays and Boots health club which offers discount on their own products and I'll get myself a Senior Railcard if I am allowed. There are probably some other schemes that I am not currently aware of. I am not looking for something for nothing, but it is sheer stupidity not to claim your entitlement. I have worked hard for the last forty years. I know that I have not had forty years of paid employment. It was forty years last month since I started university. For those who think that university is a skive and a doddle, the life of an applied science undergraduate is a hard one. We had a 9.15 am lecture Monday to Friday three terms a year for three years and some evenings we did not finish our practical session until after 6.00 pm. Then the practical had to be written up.  During the three day week of the winter of 1973-4 the university buildings were unheated and we regularly spent four hours sitting in an unheated lecture theatre. In those days students lived on the breadline in grotty flats which were nothing like the luxury that the students of today expect. We had no central heating, fridge, telephone, television or stereo. I had a battery operated radio and contact with home was via a weekly letter and a weekly phone call from a phone box. We were happy. We considered ourselves to be in a privileged position. I would not have missed it for the world. It is undoubtedly the one of the best things that I have ever done. After graduation I did one year's pre-registration training and for most of the last 36 years I have worked as a pharmacist, initially in hospital, then the pharmaceutical industry and now in retail.

Recently husband and I have spent some time reinvesting and deferring my pensions in the hope that they maybe worth more when I do decide to take them. Yes, pensions not pension. I know it sounds as if I am rolling in it, but nothing could be further from the truth. As a result of being badly advised and poor investments by the pension providers they are worth very little. However, it is not all doom and gloom as I shall be entitled to a full state pension when the fateful day arrives and the first nine and a half years of my working life was spent in the employment of the NHS then the Civil Service which has rewarded me with a small but bullet proof pension.

However, for the moment retirement will have to wait, as I have agreed to work eleven days of holiday cover between now and Christmas. I have been told that retirement is great and I have been looking forward to it for the last few years. When I first started work I used to think how awful it must be not be able to go to work. For the next few years I intend to enjoy myself before old age and senility set in.

The Good Life

Husband and I have been making the most of the recent good weather by spending as much time as we could in our garden, which this year has been a bit neglected as a result of my work schedule and the dismal weather that we have had here in the north west of England. We did have some good weather but it invariably seemed to be on the days that I was working. So once gain I have to apologise for absenting myself from Blogland. Husband has now had his two cataract ops. and it has been ideal recuperation to be able to potter around in the garden in warm sunny weather, even if he has had to wear sun glasses.

This year for the first time we have had a taste of the good life. For those of you who do not live in the UK or who are too young to remember, The Good Life was a TV sitcom about a young couple, Tom and Barbara Good played by Richard Briars and Felicity Kendall, who dropped out of the rat race and tried to become self sufficient by growing fruit and vegetables and keeping a pig. We do not have a pig but we have grown vegetables for the first time this year.

Summer 2010 and this is what our vegetable garden looked like.

The shed was purchased on 2005 to temporarily house the contents of our largely asbestos garage while it was rebuilt. It ended up full of all sorts and it was a mammoth task to empty it so that we could sell it which we managed to do about a year ago.

Summer 2011 the vegetable garden looked like this.

The vegetable garden is husband's 'baby' and I have left it pretty much up to him to organise it and grow what he wants. He bought the raised beds in kit form. He also bought the soil to fill the raised beds and has installed an irrigation system. The plants came from a garden centre. I am not sure if we shall ever get our money back or break even on this project. Next year maybe we shall try to grow the plants from seed.

The first vegetable that we were able to harvest was the spinach and we have continued to pick it on a regular basis for several weeks now. However, the leaves are now noticeably smaller. Next were the lettuces, cauliflowers and broccoli. Unfortunately some went to seed, as we did not watch them carefully enough. This year it has all been a bit of an experiment and next year we shall know better. The mange tout exceeded our  wildest expectations with a bumper crop. We had thought that our Cheshire climate would not be warm enough for them. The peas also did well and were far better than any frozen peas.

Carrots and cabbages have been a first for us. Carrots you would expect to be straight forward, but they have been anything but. Now I know why in days gone by housewives did not go out to work. It takes time and imagination to prepare something that looks edible from a carrot that resembles an octopus. The sprouts look to be about ready to harvest, but we must wait for a frost before we pick them. Amazing is the only description for our potato crop. We did not expect the rather sorry looking seed potatoes that we bought to do much at all, but we have enough potatoes to feed an army. Our courgettes crop has been our best ever. We have grown them before, always from seed I might add. Then there are the runner beans which are still producing.

Also we have had a good crop of tomatoes. I do not seem to have much luck with tomato seeds, so have always bought them as plants. This variety is Gardener's Delight. I find that the smaller tomatoes ripen better, than larger ones, in our relatively cool climate.

Lastly there is the fruit crop. The fruit cage contains raspberries and blackberries. Only the late raspberries have done well this year. Hopefully next year we shall do better with the fruit as we are both partial to raspberries. Finally there are two ancient cooking apple trees in our garden. We have already had some wind falls but will not harvest the main crop for a few weeks yet.

It has been a very worth while experiment. It has given husband more interest in the garden than he has had as he tends to leave most of it to me. Picking fresh vegetables from the garden and eating them within hours, rather than days for supermarket bought vegetables, has been an absolute pleasure.