Well can you believe it, I haven’t done a proper blog since the 13th of December. I have done a few doggie ones in between and an entry last Thursday for my Dad’s birthday, but that’s it. I have just been really busy. I haven’t visited anyone else’s pages either and I apologise for that. I guess it’s that time of year where time just seems to run away.
What have I been doing? Well Friday and Saturday were spent catching up on the dreaded housework. Sunday, I went to Stevenage as it was the Christmas party in my Mums hospital ward. I went with my Dad as my sister wasn’t available and Simon went to see his own parents.
The care staff at the hospital had put in a real effort and the place looked really nice. They had lots of decorations in the main room and a lovely Christmas tree. All the patients were in the main room even though most of them are too far gone in their illnesses to understand what was happening. A lot of patients had visitors but it was sad to see the ones who had nobody.
A lady called Millie, who my Dad tells me he has never seen with a visitor, became my new best friend. She was sitting next to me and took hold of my hand. She seemed to be clutching on to me for dear life. It was so sad. Millie doesn’t talk, although her mouth works furiously as if she is trying to say something. I don’t know what illness she has so I don’t know if she is able to understand what is said to her or not.
I did my best to talk to her and even had her up for a little dance with the aid of one of the care workers. At the end when it was time to leave, I gave her a kiss, just like I do my Mum, and she gave me such a lovely smile. I hope that in some small way she thought she had her own visitor that day. It really upset me. More even than my Mum, because Mum always has visitors.
The party was good fun and every member of staff was there. They had laid on a lovely spread of food with enough to feed the 5,000! They do all of this themselves, out of their own pockets. Cooking and baking and buying. One member of staff organises a raffle the proceeds of which go to the ward. I understand that they take £5 and buy each patient a Christmas present so that no one is left out on the day. Dad won a lavender gift set and I won a very nice bottle of wine. Needless to say I also came home with the lavender smellies as Dad has no use for them!
They had the karaoke going all afternoon and all the staff joined in with the singing. They also get those that are able up for a little dance. I did manage to get Mum up for quite a while. She doesn’t really move and she chatters on the whole time! Dad also got up and had a little dance too. He can’t move much either because of his leg, so we must have looked a very funny sight, the three of us!!
As far as we could tell, Mum enjoyed it, although she clearly had no idea at all what it was all about. She doesn’t understand that Christmas is imminent. She became quite agitated before we left but I think that was probably due to over stimulation. The main thing was that Dad was happy that we had been there together.
On Monday, I was in school for a science exam. That went fine but unfortunately, while I was in the exam, I had money stolen from my hand bag. A man had managed to enter the school and get into the exams office which was unattended at the time. He stole the purses from the 2 other exams staff and was interrupted whilst going through my bag.
Janet, who had found him gave chase and to cut a long story short he proceeded to rampage through the school, finally exiting through the fire door of a classroom where a lesson was taking place. He was caught outside by the PE staff but he threatened them with a knife so they obviously had to let him go. I was held up in school half the afternoon as we all had to be interviewed by the police and give statements regarding what had been stolen.
Fortunately, no one was hurt and I didn’t lose as much as the other two ladies as he hadn’t got as far as my purse only some notes that were in the other side of my bag. I do find it very worrying however, that a man can enter the building and run riot threatening people with a knife, when there are 1800 children there. The possible scenarios of what could have happened don’t bare thinking about. I am not sure if he actually had a knife or not. He said he did but I don’t know if anyone actually saw it. The threat is enough for me.
Anyway, owing to that, I was very late home and didn’t get the jobs done that I had wanted to. At half past eight in the evening when Joshua went of to the station to collect Verity, I was still trying to get the clean bed linen on her bed for her. Verity is home for the holidays. She will return to Southampton in January, when she starts her teaching practice. She has lots of work to do during the holidays as she has to write up all her lesson plans and other stuff relating to differentiation for less able pupils. She is here on her own as Adam has gone home to his parents on Belfast
Yesterday saw me again catching up on house work; although I didn’t get as much done as I would like as Verity and I were also catching up and then Coralie came round and we ended up sitting around chatting. Last night I sat with Verity watching TV, which is not something that I usually do. Hence, no blogging!!
Today had been equally busy up till now. I did house work this morning, including hand washing for Verity. I really have to train my girls not to buy things that need to be hand washed!! I’m sure she saved them up to bring home for me to wash!!
Simon finished school today at 2.30pm and he has gone into town with Verity and Saskia to buy some Christmas presents for me. The girls have gone to try and guide home in the right direction!!! Saskia is going to have dinner with us tonight, so that she can catch up with her sister. Simon has said he will cook it when they get back from town, so I haven’t got to worry about it.
I did a bit more ironing after they went and then I have been on here. Hopefully, I may actually be able to catch up with some of you tonight as we don’t have anything planned. Gosh, this has turned into a long blog. Time to go and make some coffee I think!!
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