OneGuyFromBarlick

Cracking on with the engines, the end is in sight! Two years worthy endeavour.



One man's kitchen furniture is another's unacceptable clutter!

Recovering from another dash to Leeds, following a 5.45pm phone call from Mum to say that the doctor had called an ambulance and she was off to St James's. I got there before she did. She arrived at 8.15 and was sent to the surgical assessment ward, where she was the last to be attended to at 11.15pm. She is terrified of hospitals, claustrophobic and can't sit still...combine this with fear & discomfort and you can imagine what the 3 hour wait was like! Her problem was dealt with quickly and efficiently (though it is going to occur with increasing regularity unless she has an op) and she was free to leave. It was heading for midnight and the hospital multi story car park gets locked at 10.00pm. "Ring security is you need access" it says on the entrance, but security were busy with an incident elsewhere and the man on the phone told me to go into the smart new Becket wing and make myself comfortable in reception till somebody could come and let me (and a couple of other folk) out. (Mum was waiting in a different, far away, wing to be brought down to the entrance for me to pick her up). Half an hour later we get let into the multi story, and the security lady tells us to come to the staff exit to get out.....I didn't realize the ground level was different to where I entered....I couldn't find my way out!! What a nightmare..I eventually realised I had to go up a level not down, but I felt so stupid
Anyway, I found Mum, negotiated Leeds in the pouring rain at 1.00am in the morning and returned her to her own bed.
Once again I have had to leave her alone today so she will get some rest.

Wendy, I met that rather "grumpy" woman at Colne library yesterday. Mary's her name. I don't find her very pleasant.

We library volunteers have learnt to appreciate each others qualities Sunray. All very different, but together we make a good team!

Well okay Wendy, yourself, Jill Pengelly, and is there a Jean Ingham in the team? Mary says "there is no one by that name and not from The Friends of St John's Churchyard". But I have been told otherwise?

Wendy, I hope you don't have to go to St James too often! Sounds like something out of Kafka. That's the only advantage of having someone ill in Oz, you aren't expected to sick visit.

Jean isn't a volunteer at the library Sunray. I believe she recently retired from being Chairperson of the Pendle & Burnley branch of the LFHHS which meets at the library.

Wendyf wrote:She arrived at 8.15 and was sent to the surgical assessment ward, where she was the last to be attended to at 11.15pm

A familiar story Wendy. When my dad, at that time about 90, went for a day surgery op on his hand we had a 60-mile round trip to hospital and they kept him to the last even though he was the oldest. We kept returning, expecting him to be ready to leave, so I complained to the nurse in charge and she was surprised when I told her his age and she apologised. But you'd think the nurse in charge would look at the details of the patients in her care. The trouble is, my dad looks fit and younger than he really is! When my mother-in-law was in a bad state and sent to hospital by the doctor recently she had to take a taxi and arrived at 3.00pm and wasn't admitted until about 9.00pm. I'm a supporter of the NHS but it should be better managed.

Someone has just been telling me about a new system in Pendle to try and treat the elderly in their own homes if possible. Each area has a "virtual ward" with a matron in charge. There is a bit about it here. Seems like an excellent idea.

It was Jill that told me Jean was at the library on Wednesdays. Thanks for letting me know. I have been in correspondence with Jill Pengelly via FB regarding Selina Cooper, the independant Labour party activist in Nelson. We don't, yet, know where she is buried.

The Pendle & Burnley LFHHS meet in Colne library at 7.30pm on each 3rd & 5th Wednesday see programme. Nothing to do with the Wednesday volunteer group Sunray, but this is what Jill would have been talking about.

Well , tomorrow, off to the steepest standard gauge railway track in the UK. Unfortunately I'm selling so don't get a chance to get a ride on the tractors/ trains etc running on the day.

AA/Google streetview informative of where I should end up.

Shed and Grand Prix is back after their holidays.

Premier rugby back on TV as well with the now traditional opener of the "double header" from Twickenham Wasps v Harlequins followed by Saracens v London Irish.... great. Nolic

We have a french lesson this morning and then this afternoon I am helping my brother empty Dad's house. We are doing some maintenance and decorating to try and increase its kerb appeal etc. We have taken advice from 5 estate agents, and hope to get things moving( literally I hope) this week.

Freezing runner beans, making yet more courgette soup (going to try courgette & carrots this time) and hoping to get out for a quick walk this afternoon. Major works are taking place in our living room at the moment, the walls need dry lining, over half the floor boards need replacing and new windows to be put in. It's our only room apart from the kitchen, so its a bit of an upheaval.
Sounds as if you have a task on your hands with your Dad's house Sue. Hope it goes OK.

Sue, what you are doing sounds so familiar to me. My dad has moved to a smaller house in town and we are this weekend putting the bungalow on sale with an agent. We approached several agents and they mostly said the same asking price except one which was higher. We emulsioned the internal walls and ceilings and freshly painted the external rendered walls in brilliant white masonry paint, cleaned everything, sorted the very big garden and got repairs done in the house. We've put it on sale with an agent who doesn't tie you in to any fixed period so you can leave them any time if you are not satisfied. They also charge their commission (all 1.5% here) on the price you pay for the house, not the original asking price.

Wendy, the virtual ward idea sounds brilliant. We don't have it here but our village has now joined a `cluster' attended by a Village Community Agent' who is a trained district nurse and can make visits to advise people on how they can get help if they are disabled, elderly etc. All great stuff - I've put one of my neighbours in touch with her already.

Strangely these things don't seem to exist in West London where Mrs Tiz's parents live and it's very dificult to get anyone to come and assess them at home. You'd think it would be easier in built-up areas than out here in the remote countryside!

Its been atraumatic day revisiting belongings that we had kept and now have to pack up and dispose of around the family. I had a few tears about a small doll, which Mum kept as her' companion' when Dad was in hospital for 6 months and she started to suffer severely with dementia. I have failed to throw it away until today but it had to go, too sad a memory. I have bagged up all the bedding and intend converting that into a patchwork bed quilt for France. A long term project I think.

Okay thanks Wendy. Sorry to be an annoyance to you. I got my wires crossed somewhere, as they say.

Sue and Tiz. Courage mon braves! I must have a very sheltered life! Or perhaps the attacks get less frequent as you get older.

I've reached a straight edge with me engines. Ready now for one of the last stages before I can bring them to life. All the washing is done and I'm ready to start writing some articles for the BET. The subject has been rolling round in my head for a while now so it's not going to be a pain. I'll bet it's a nice sunny day today!

Mrs Tiz has gone to London today for a meeting with sister & dad, plus others such as an occupational therapist. Her mum is being sent home on Wednesday but we still don't know what was wrong with her in the first place - we know the symptoms she had but we haven't heard any results of tests. A new bed has been bought and put in a downstairs room because she is too frail to get upstairs, even if she had a stair lift, but we expect the OT will say it's not acceptable because there is no shower or bathroom downstairs. They might want her to go in a home of some kind, which would be better for dad who can't look after her due to his Parkinson's and heart trouble but she wants to stay at home. Making changes to the house for her, such as trying to put in a shower room, isn't really sensible as the house is getting in poor repair and would need lots of other things done...but dad doesn't want the hassle of people coming in and knocking the place about. Mum's character has changed and she snaps at people when they try to help her and she won't try to help herself. It's going to be complicated finding a solution but there are going to be many other people in this type of situation as we live longer and the pressures on services increase.

I hope Mrs Tiz and her sister can make some progress today. I have just been speaking to my mum's doctor, hoping she would be able to suggest a way we could get help to deal with her problem without a trip to hospital, but no joy. She was pretty much saying that if Mum didn't want to call a doctor and face the possibility of being sent to hospital then she was unable to live independently and should be in a nursing home.

Depressing isn't it. I can see the logic in the therapist's view Wendy but it's hard. Reading about Mrs Tiz's mother worries me as well. The automatic assumption that you can't survive without a bathroom is stupid for someone of my generation. When I was born over 50% of the population survived quite happily without a bathroom! I go back to Florence Nightingale, "Given privacy and a quart of water it is quite possible to maintain an adequate standard of cleanliness". (From memory, may not be word for word but that was her opinion.) Surely the criterion should be to try the new regime and see how she gets on? Simply applying draconian rules doesn't sound logical or helpful. It sounds as though there is a 'guideline' at work here and it's not helping.
Yesterday was a writing day, two articles. Hopefully another two today. That'll keep me out from under the feet!

Safeguarding training for teaching staff in Kendal this morning. Then a meeting with an organisation that turned me down for a job when I left Ofsted to plan the level of involvement that they want from me to turn their children's homes around. I think I said before on One Guy that they are going to pay.... they can well afford it as they have venture capital funding. Nolic