.. that was a crazy weekend!<\/p>\n
The lovely spectre of a day off treaty Friday afternoon in Selfridges with my \u00a350 gift card and 20% off Amex voucher, brousing black cardigans that can help hide the whale silhouette of a greedy woman, went up in a puff of unexpected smoke at 8am that morning.<\/p>\n
Phone rang as I was in bed, never a good sign – and it was one of Mum's morning tablets ladies, conversation went:<\/p>\n
'Hello, I've just got here and your Mum's on the floor'<\/p>\n
'Oh god, is she ok? How long has she been there?'<\/p>\n
'She says only 15 minutes and she says she's fine but she can't get up'<\/p>\n
'Well can you perhaps help her?'<\/p>\n
'Oh no,that contravenes Health & Safety so I absolutely can't touch her'<\/p>\n
'Even if she says she'd love you to?'<\/p>\n
'Definitely not. But she says she might be able to crawl down the corridor and to the sofa'<\/p>\n
'She's 82. Please can you help her?'<\/p>\n
'No. Can you come?'<\/p>\n
'Yes, but I'm not yet dressed and it's rush hour so I'll be at least 40 minutes and I don't want Mum on the floor that long'<\/p>\n
'I have to move my car now. I am calling the ambulance.' And she hung up….<\/p>\n
SO – I thought, that's it – we have to do more for Mum. So bless him, my lovely husband went off to get her, pack a bag, take her to the docs for an MOT and brought her back to ours. Which would be fine, were it not for all the live cables, holes in the floor, endless builder banging all day Sat & Sun and thick coating of dust on everything. My, does Mum look good under a shroud of grey grot…<\/p>\n
And within 2 days she'd gone from looking very frail, pale and saying 'I want to go to sleep… forever' (not exactly the words that a daughter wants to hear, sigh) to looking much perkier and even coming out for supper with us last night. OK, so she slept through most of it and I suspect had no idea where she was, but we did get her down the stairs, in the car, up the road, up & down their rug and living room several times, and back up 2 flights of stairs (into our much-missed bed, we have the joy of a mattress on the temporary living room floor, one nose in the coffee table and the other in the car litter tray, nice, until the building work is done and we have the spare bedrooms back in use).<\/p>\n
And I'd be amazed if she ever makes it back to her place. So far we're painting it as 'a few days holiday at our house' but as she can hardly walk to the loo unaided, let alone carry a cup of tea or remember to eat lunch, this is going to be the new 54 Stroud Rd for a while!<\/p>\n
So, the rest of Fri was spent cancelling all my painstakingly found & booked carers in Kingston Council, and trying to find new ones under Merton Borough, calling her church and local friends and reassuring the chap in the flat below Mum's that yes we would put a carpet in if we rent her place in the New Year and the new people are noiser than her.<\/p>\n
We had a red button emergeny alarm fitted by a very nice lady on Sunday (goes so well with the new planned decor, not) – like a bloody madhouse with Hatch & Richard dropping in, plus Jack & Toby - Jack chuffed as I handed over his birthday present, Toby crying as he didn't get one (it's not his birthday and I'm not his godmother!), hunting for a piece of toy that Toby had lost, finding a purple pen with feathers under the sofa instead which Mojo then disembowelled like a purple pigeon, 5 builders downstairs and the poor lady trying to take contact details for Mum for when she presses the button, while sitting on my bed in a slightly perturbed fashion… Oh yes and me trying to eat the McDonald's sausage mcmuffin that H had (honestly!) brought back for the first time ever – god we looked like a pikey bunch. <\/p>\n
Anyway, to cut a long palaver short, I'm nipping out of work this arvo to meet one of the two poss new carers to come and do food \/ walks with Mum, and little by little I will get it sorted.<\/p>\n
New routine this morning of getting mum up, dressed, cup of tea, hair brushed, to the loo, down the stairs, on the sofa, toast & peanut butter, told several times where H & I will be all day, and I still made it to AV by 9am, PHEW! Now I understand the phrase 'coming to work for a rest!'<\/p>\n
But it's totally the right thing to do, and it's amazing how warming a feeling that can be. I'll just have to remember it when things aren't going quite so smoothly (like when H told me I couldn't go out this coming Sat night as he was going out with the Boys – but for which I already a solution, ah yes, we can sort most things out, and legally I think it is more permissible to leave an elderly lady who likes to go to bed early at home alone than it is small children, so thank god for that…<\/p>\n
And we won 2-0 on Saturday, so that perked up the weekend no end, as did a curry night out with some old Wimbledon hockey mates, lunch at Jane's and supper at Janine's. H and I may be rushed and stressed but by god are we still well fed….<\/p>\n
More soon! SX<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
.. that was a crazy weekend! The lovely spectre of a day off treaty Friday afternoon in Selfridges with my \u00a350 gift card and 20% off Amex voucher, brousing black cardigans that can help hide the whale silhouette of a greedy woman, went up in a puff of unexpected smoke at 8am that morning. Phone rang as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n