My beloved Nanna used to say to me, don’t wish your life away, and time goes faster the older you get. I think she was right. Now I am older and wiser of course! Already It’s New Year’s Eve, the days have whizzed by and we are not going out tonight. We usually go round to dear friends of ours and gather in a familiar group of very like minded souls. We’ve had takeaway in the past, a 70’s style buffet, cheese, charcuterie and wine, leftovers, pie n peas - all sorts. Drinks, laughs, lovely. But I’m more of a Christmassy girl in truth. This year thanks to the horrific and brutal side effects of the medication I am on, we’ve opted for a quiet one at home. I’ll probably be asleep anyway. Currently in a period of insomnia - waking at 2.30am on the dot give or take a minute or two. I’m up now at 5am to take some meds to try and settle my washing machine innards. So I’m writing this on my phone in front of my beautiful, if I do say so myself, tree!
My darling Ma in law is slipping further and further now into dementia and it is heartbreaking to hear the HG say things like. Have you noticed I only talk about Mum in the past tense now? ( yes of course I had ) Or, it’s like visiting someone you don’t know who has nothing to say.
Some days she is more chatty but mostly she’s quiet. She’s taken to holding a teddy and talking to it as if it’s a little boy. For a long time the HG has been one of her younger brothers. She thinks his sister, who has been her main carer now since Covid, is her late twin sister, who ask suffered with dementia, but died during the pandemic. She thinks what she is watching on TV is real. She sees things out of the window that are not there. She sets places on every surface for people coming in for their tea and went though a period of making enough sandwiches to feed an army much to the frustration of my SIL who does her shopping! She also hides things - particularly the to remote. Carers go in a morning and evening - mostly for meds and three times on a Wednesday for lunch and company to give my SIS a break. I said from the start to go for 3 times on a Wed and Sat so she can just visit but she’s reluctant because she wants to look after her Mum at home for as long as she is able. She’s not worked her hairdressing job since Covid, as she had a salon in a Nursing home and due to restrictions crossing with her Mum’s diagnosis, she’s not been able to return to work. It’s great for Mum , less so for SIL. The cost of care is high. Not as high as going in a home though. However, the HG and I wish she was in a home for that 24 hour peace of mind, company and activities. In fact, if it was solely up to us, it would have been far better for her to go in a few years ago. But it isn’t, and we are not doing the responsibility of the caring. I don’t think she’d be able to or understand what was going on now. The other day we went, she’d closed all the blinds and gone back to bed but we honestly thought she’d died in her sleep. I opened the bedroom door and her face had a bluish tinge and she was so still. The HG couldn’t go in and when I went in, she woke up with me peering over her! I said, hello it’s Rachel. She said, I know who you are and sat up. Her bluish tinge was a combination of the daylight coming in her bedroom curtains and smudged make up! She said she was just having a rest before going to the pictures. She asks sometimes, to go home. If you ask her about ornaments and things, she says they are not hers. Sad.
One thing she does reference and seems to know and chat about is baby Oliver. She doesn’t know who his Mum is but she does know Oliver and that he comes to see her and she loves him.
My friend’s elderly Mum went into a home on the sea front. It’s a rare find of a mere £995 a week. But she said her Mum made friends, the staff are amazing and she visits now every day and enjoys the time she has with her Mum. On her first day, an elderly lady sat across asked her name. My friend’s Mum said and the other lady said ohhh I thought it was you, you look just the same! Turns out, they’d been to primary school in their home village about 30 miles away and hadn’t seen each other for about 86 years!
My friend’s mum later said, I never liked her!
But she has made firm friends with another lady who showed her the ropes. My friend found it so hard at first with the guilt and the fact that hers Mum’s bungalow backs onto her back garden, so every time she washes up, she looks across and it’s now empty. Her Mum went through a readjustment phase and was furious at first but there was no real way, except my friend moving in or employing round the clock carers, to keep her Mum safe and looked after. Her Mum doesn’t have dementia as such, it was other health issues and fraility. She’s well in her 90s and lost her husband two or three years ago now. Old age is a bit rubbish.
I’m waffling on now. It’s cracking on for 6am now and I feel a bit old and frail myself after a night in the bathroom! Thankfully no school to worry about. I received some lovely messages in cards from the families who I work with and so many lovely gifts.
My work wife ( the other Pastoral Mentor to give us our official titles ) and I transformed our room to provide a ‘Cosy Christmas’ experience for the whole school. We managed to keep it special for them all and some of the reactions were priceless. The last time we did a festive experience was when the current Y6 were in Reception and a lot of them remembered it and spoke about it. It was designed to give them all 30 minutes respite from the busy hustle and bustle of school Christmas life. They came into our white wonderland area and were directed to just enjoy the stillness and peace and quiet and really notice, reeeeally notice the decorations and to focus on one that called to them. One by one, they were invited into the Cosy Christmas Living Room where they had a photo with a fake hot chocolate - giving them another memory, before going and having their drink of choice made to their liking - most opted for the full cream, marshmallows, sprinkles and biscuits in a festive mug, and we all sat by the tree, listened to a Christmassy story that they wouldn’t have heard before and then we had a little chat about what they put out for Santa, or first or earliest Christmas memories, or what Christmas looks like in their house, or what they wished for Christmas or as one group went mad for, because I’d spoken about Oliver’s first Christmas to them, how old they were on their first Christmas and what they might have been able to do! We made over 250 hot chocolates in a fortnight and read over 40 Christmassy stories! It was very hard work but so worth it. Some of the staff were wowed too and enjoyed the informality of the situation, chatting with the children. The photos don’t really do it justice. I’ll have to take the before photos when the room is back to normal! One little one said
Woooowwwwww, it’s just beeeeeuuuuuutiful. Please let me sleep here tonight!
We put lights behind them. We had a cracking fire sound playing on an iPad behind it and taller candles back lit the fire. The other resources were pinched, stolen and borrowed from various locations round school. We went shopping at the local hospice shop - we took a group of our regular Childers - to buy baubles for the tree and bits and bobs. If you zoom in you will see we ‘wallpapered’ the living room with a roll of wallpaper the kind shipman fished out of the bin for us - held up with Velcro and blutak. Everything 4ft and above is my tall friend, 5ft and under, ground level, is me haha. Usually, that corner has a floor to ceiling realistic forest mural on the walls which we have fairy doors and windows on normally for our resident enchanted forest.
We then stripped back the Christmassy bits and the Nativity, whizzed the sofa round and shared a cosy winter experience with a non religious family of children so they too had a hot chocolate and a story.
The presents were a variety of surprises! On the last day we gathered our group of regular check in children for a final session together. We usually see them 1-2-1 but this time it was group time. They loved it. The usual drink of juice and a biscuit and a chat followed by a hilarious session of ( dreamt up on the spot by me ) go choose a present and guess what it is !
They unwrapped boxes of cup a soup from our play kitchen, one of my work files, several boxes that the decorations came in, random games from or cupboard, a pile of scrap paper etc! It helped us clear the space a little and they tidied away the paper too! Cosy Christmas 7 years ago was the same format although the room transformation was no where near as good. They had a hot chocolate and we watched old fashioned, traditional and unknown to them short films on a projector. Cosy Christmas will not be repeated again for a good few years. It cost less than £100 for a whole school experience. Definitely worth it.
Feedback from parents was positive so that’s always a bonus. Each child had their photo taken and sent to their parents. We had planned it carefully to run the 2nd and 3rd week of Dec, giving us the 3rd week to catch up on everything and enjoy the space before packing it all away. However, we both went home ill on the 2nd Monday and were off for a full week meaning the last week, we had two full classes to get through so sadly, the room is only half undressed as it were! But we shall sort it on the first day back and all will be well!
I e forgotten now, what else I was going to record for posterity. Oh a show and tell. Two knits for Oliver.
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| This one, I finished on Boxing Day. The leather buttons are gorgeous. |
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| Looks great, couldn’t get his head through so I pulled it back! So annoyed! Next will be something straight forward! I love the magic of cabling and patterns crafted just through different combinations of stitches but a plain old stocking stitch or garter stitch will be next. It’s a bit windy outside today, so apart from a dog walk, inside and napping to offset my insomnia is on the cards. Roast Beef tomorrow and MIL is coming to us though I fear it will be too much for her. We will see. She might have a good day. Hope all is well in your world x |
