Its Xmas

Merry Xmas to you all. Have a good holiday.

There I go again, talking to myself.

It seems strange being on holiday and just being made redundant and wondering how long my enforced unemployment will last. Not too long, I really believe, but I will soon be finding out. Finding a job is a full time job and come January 2nd it will be all go on the job-find campaign.

Today was another of those good and bad days. I visited my mother in a retirement home, she suffers dementia badly, and it was a miserable experience. I'm not even sure if she knew who I was and her words were mostly unidentifiable except for the occasional 'that's a nice coat', pointing at my jacket. I took her a box of chocolates and she set about eating them one at a time and playing with the foil wrappers. On her pillow was a pair of her knickers which she'd pick up, fold, unfold, hold up for viewing then put down for another chocolate. And the place reeked of urine. I can only hope I never end up like that.

Next stop was a lot more pleasant with a visit to my niece and her family to drop off presents for the children. Joseph is the newest at less than 3 months old and I had a great hour cradling him and making what I believe are the appropriate noises. When he wasn't dozing he at least seemed interested. That's my claim anyway. Merry xmas.

Alpha and Omega

I went to visit my mother yesterday along with my daughter who’s having a few days holiday with us. She is over 80 and living in a retirement home in Derbyshire and it was not a pleasant experience at all. Because of my illnesses I haven’t seen her since Xmas and she suddenly looked 10 years older. I’m not even sure she recognised us but she did try to talk, most of which seemed like gobbledygook.
The room she has appears clean and smart but like the corridor and lounge area stunk of urine. Everywhere is carpeted which doesn’t help when a lot of incontinent people are using it and there is a plan for it all to be replaced with wooden flooring. Sounds good but I can’t help thinking that wood creates its own problems if old folk slip and fall on it.
We forced ourselves to spend an hour with her before fleeing and I suspect she was unaware that we left.

The next visit nearby was a lot pleasanter. My niece is expecting a baby, 2 days ago, so the atmosphere was totally different. Alpha and Omega all in one day.