This is really only a domestic update. Autumn is here, shorter days, and just lately much colder nights. The sun is still warming but is strong for a shorter time so I love to spend time in the garden when I can. As usual there is much to do, just the usual jobs like repotting, weeding, resettling plants to maximise sunlight to keep them going through winter so there will be blooms in Spring. The weeds are still growing after all the rain we had in March and April so still a lot of maintenance.
Here it is, November already. November slips away fast every year. No sooner started than hello December and December is holidays, school holidays, workers holidays and this year Christmas. But that is still a long way off and there is much to do between now and then. Simple things like Christmas card lists and complicated things like what do I send to family members so far away?
Because I still belong to the Stroke group WAGS I still support caregivers and widows who were formerly c
Well I posted in February that it was raining and that continued most of March, it was the rainiest period in many decades. It did stop for a few days and then back came the torrential downpours and the floods. Some towns further north really suffered. It has eased back now but the run off is still happening and the older, deeper drains are still running. Most people can't remember having the minor flooding as we have just experienced. Is it global warming or just the changes as resculpturing
My word for this year is SHINE. I am not sure for the moment exactly what that means but I am determined not to let the new form of Covid take the colour out of my world. The numbers of cases is high, the government in its wisdom no longer publishes statistics or areas affected so we live in ignorance BUT I will not be afraid. Fear is why my three grandchildren in Adelaide have not come up to stay with their mother this summer holiday. Fear is why there were no Carol services and we are back to
In Australia a lot of service type people call older ladies "Darls" short for darling, an inoffensive term of endearment and often a substitute for other words such as "sweetie" (sweetheart) or "pet" which were often used a couple of decades ago. This morning a trolley boy took my trolley back to the trolley bay after asking if he could "take it Darls" and last week another young man offered to help unload my groceries. All this shows I am an older woman now, a fact given away by the grey hair a
I have been busy with family the past three weeks. I went up to Armidale for a little break and while I was there my daughter misstepped and ruptured the meniscus behind her right knee. Luckily the injury required rest not an operation, that meant no work, no driving, no more than a few minutes on her feet. Her husband took care of her the first week then I came home and was asked to go for a week to drive her daughter to school, take Shirley to doctors appointments, physio etc and do the shop
You all know about the devastating bush fires we had in January. They were accompanied by high temperatures, the very hot and dry westerly winds and added to the dry bush conditions what devastation they caused. Well we have rain at last. Here on the Central Coast it is very welcome, a full day yesterday and some showers today. In some places there has been flooding and a couple of the lakes with a sea outlet have been "let out" which is a good thing.
It has been a strange year so f
Last weekend was the Women's weekend of the Stroke Support group WAGS, I think my 10th full weekend although I have sometimes
just gone to the Friday or Saturday night, depending on the circumstances. I remember one year I got my older son to look after Ray so just went from lunchtime Saturday until after the dinner. Of course the past six years I have gone as a widow. I shared with another younger widow this year as I did last year. She is only mid-fifties and still has children in her car
I am surviving winter, in five or six weeks Spring will be here. This has been a cold winter but today was mild and most people seemed to appreciate the day, even saw some out in short sleeves. I am in my busy week, hospital visit today, birthday morning tea tomorrow, church women's meeting on Friday I still like to be busy just not too busy.
I have started a new course called " Better Heath - Self Management" It is a free course, a government health initiative to tell us to meditat
I had my operation to remove my lymph nodes on the left side of my trunk seven weeks ago, now I am finally healing. With my usual routine unavailable I was glad I found a few new things to do. I also had a lot of visitors, some of whom had never been to my house before. I am not a very tidy person and was a bit worried that some of my friends might judge me on that. I soon realised that most of the people I call my friends love me just the way I am, a very comforting thought.
One
It was the WAGS Christmas party today, my second favorite party. I missed a couple of parties last weekend as I was out at Broken Hill with my younger son Trevor. I wanted to be there that weekend as it was his birthday on Monday 27th. As he is a long way away from friends and family he loves it when I can be there and it was his access time to his five year old Alice too so we had a ball. We took Alice to Playtime at the local Salvation Army, to please her we went to see the movie "My Little
Today I went to the Stroke Recovery group WAGS that Ray and I used to go to, I don't always attend the monthly meetings and today one of the members came late and slipped into the seat beside me and said: "I am so glad you are here today I take so much strength from you." This girl has just been diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer so I know she is going through a bad time. She always seems happy but I know it is not always as it seems and she is struggling. We have had long talks from time
On Saturday I went to the Combined Stroke Groups morning tea. I have stepped back from the Stroke Recovery group that Ray and I belonged to “WAGS” in the last six months but got a reminder email from one of my friends who belongs to that group and then a phone call to ask why I was neglecting to meet up with my good friends there. So I decided to go back to meet up with them again and was glad I did. Friends from all the different parts of our life are a gift and I should never stop being thankf
Life has many ways of connecting people. I have just been up to visit my daughter and her family for a few days. It had been three months since I had been up there, I get entangled in issues locally and it soaks up my time. I have to reset my priorities. The weather was what we have been having here, brilliant sunshine followed by pouring rain, the left over vestiges of a cyclone in Northern Queensland. It has been wet most of the month of March and now April is looking as if the weather will
Definitely not looking forward to winter. We go off daylight saving next weekend and I know suddenly it will be dark at 5.30pm again. As I am a six hour sleeper that means a lot of long dark nights alone. I just love daylight saving as it means long days when I can be busy and still have time to sit on the verandah and read until the sun goes down, have a late evening meal, and go to bed just before midnight feeling that I have done something worthwhile with my time. I have a lot of hand work to
We had a phone call today to ask would I like to take a cancelled appointment to have Ray see the neurologist tomorrow morning instead of 13th October? "Yes, please," I said. Then thought oh dear I should be teaching Religious Education at that time. But you can't use time twice and I do want another opinion on why Ray is still having strokes so - sorry kids, see you next week.
Had my Mum home for lunch today and she paced in and out of the house for a while and then settled down in an ea
"None of you is a believer until you love for your brother what you love for yourself" said the bearded gentleman in the long robe just as a segment on the news finished. I came into the room just then, I knew it was something about the Interfaith meeting between notables from various faiths called to discuss, pray about and hopefully put a stop to some of the racial/religious violence that is going on at the moment and of course I'd missed it and just come in to hear that enigmatic statement.
I felt really sorry for Ray tonight. We did half of the new exercises before dinner and half of them after an hour or so. It possibly wasn't the right time but it was the time I had left. He really struggled to raise his left foot off the floor and it was a strain that really showed on his face. But he did it.
Hopefully he will get some of his previous fitness back. I know that firmer muscles, more exercise in a day, make for a happier Ray. But he does always need "help" and there is res
I have just farewelled my four year old grand daughter. She was here for twelve hours!! 12 hours!!
Her uncle and her Dad went for a public service exam in Sydney about an hour and a half's drive away. They got held up on road works, traffic jams etc (on a Sunday morning??) and missed the first five minutes of the exam, were told to come back at 1pm , and then the exam started at 2pm. So hence the long day.
She is a lovely little girl but oh so full on. And Sunday afternoon I generally put
Today my sister came to look after Ray while I went off to the Lodge to see Mum. It is the same routine when I go on Fridays, cut up fresh fruit salad drive to the Lodge. There I walk in, sit down with her, wait for her to acclimatise to my presence, introduce the fruit salad, and watch her eat it. That can take up to 30 minutes, then we do various things. We usually walk that "circuit" (this is a dementia specific Lodge so a walking circuit is a must) and go to her room. Sometimes we sit i
I had my little grand daughter this afternoon as I do every Thursday. She was in a strange mood, a bit out of sorts and then the new physiotherapist came to assess Ray. She was a small woman of Scottish ancestry and had a booming voice and as she bossed Tori's beloved Pa around Tori got scared so she hid in our bed and had a twenty minute or so cat nap.
She surfaced again with her usual aplomb in place and jumped on the trampoline and did various activities.
The kids two blocks over skid
I seem to be stuck in a time warp again. Some people see the big picture, I see all the little details. Life at the moment is a trivial pursuit.
Today I took out the white primulas that the wind burned off and replaced them with little blue violas that will be a picture in a fortnight if we don't have a heatwave by then. I topped up the pots with soil and watered them. It took an hour or so but I was out in the fresh air and the birds raced past (it is pairing time for a lot of them) it wasn
We have had a couple of really good days. Yesterday we went to our local Flora Festival. I didn' t think it was as good this year as it featured drought hardy plants which are not as spectacular as exotics or the English cottage garden plants. Generally with our water restrictions people are letting their gardens go so there is not the enthusiasm or the income for plant nurseries.
One thing I noticed yesterday as there were a lot of pre-schoolers around was some of the tactics modern Mums u
We had a good day today. The kids and grandkids came and we managed to have a very harmonious day. We were supposed to go to a local beauty spot and barbecue but the rain came, only light and about an hour in all but enough to make sitting on the grass impractical. Never mind, it didn't matter, I cooked heaps of meats, had some salad prepared and added side dishes and there was plenty. The 'boys' washed up after lunch so peace for a short time.
Good to see the littlies playing together, ver
Didn't have a good day today, no real reason. Ray had an "accident" last night, tipped his half full urinal over the bedroom floor. 3am and I am on my hands and knees wiping over the carpet with old towels and spraying deodorant liberally around. So I was tired today and not functioning very well.
A couple of people have had a "word" with me this week about putting Ray into respite and giving myself some time off. As a full-time Carer on a Carers Pension I am entitled to 30 days a year of
