Have you ever tried to make a cup of tea in the half light, quietly?

Well – this is how my morning has started. Actually it started 3 hours ago, when I couldn’t sleep.

We have gone away. Our usual early holiday to Centre Parcs.  We book a little break into the hotel. It usually gives us a well-earned rest from caring for my elderly and frail father in law. This time we have put carers in place, to make sure he is well supported when we are not there. But it has really created quite a lot of work before we leave, and has continued while we are away. Phone calls from health professionals, care agencies, estate agents.

It might give you an idea why my day started at 5am. My poor brain won’t switch off.

So after much tossing and turning, cover off, covers on & two trips to the toilet already – I decided to have a cup to tea. I was getting fed up with warm fizzy water.  

It was ‘dark’ in the room, heavy curtains shut the light from outside, except for a thin sliver shining through – straight onto my side of the bed. Every time I got up the sensor would turn the toilet light and fan on. There was a lovely warm towel radiator by the shower. Unfortunately it had a bright blue detector light on the bottom – filling the whole of the room in an eerie blue tinge.

Unfortunately none of these lights were any good for the tea making process! I had no light to see how much water I was filling the kettle with. I was filling it from a bathroom sink – shallow with not enough room to get the kettle in, without tipping half of it out when I took the kettle away. We have all been there haven’t we? But in the half light of a towel rail it doesn’t help.

I put the bed side light on hoping it wouldn’t wake my slumbering husband. No chance of that – if he has slept through the tossing, turning, blue light, toilet fan of the night – a little pin hole light wasn’t going to wake him up!

Not even the boiling kettle woke him up, the jangling of the cup, the ripping open of the bag of tea bags, the fridge opening and closing, the chinking of the cup on the saucer! Not even me typing on the lap top in the half-light could wake him!

I’ve had two cups of tea and a breakfast biscuit in a foil pouch, and he is still asleep.

Although I love the idea of being in the hotel, overlooking the lake – I do wonder if there is an advantage of a little lodge with a kitchen, a comfy sofa and a TV I could watch at 4.30am.  Without disturbing anyone else.

What do you think?

Christmas ‘celebrations’

I love Christmas. My family loves Christmas. The season for getting together and sharing good fortune and love. In the form of food and gifts.

My hubby and I have retired, so we make sure that through the year, we put money by for food for the family over Christmas. I’m quite frugal, so buy food on offer, and freeze them ready for the big day!! It certainly works. No one knows…

We are so lucky that the whole family – without exception gets along. So 3 days of celebration ran really smoothly. Well as smoothly as possible.

Christmas Eve, we hosted both sons and their girlfriends and wives and our two grandchildren and my oldest sons best friend. Together with my father in law, his 2nd Christmas without his wife, my husbands mother- the matriarch of the family. Oh, and a dog – he is an integral part of the family and this year’s Christmas story.

We shared good food, lovingly prepared, and fun and laughter. Our grandchildren entertained us as did my two sons. It was a time to remember. None of us know what next year will hold for the family or who will be sitting around the table next year.

Christmas morning was spent with our youngest son, his girlfriend, and our pup grandson! He had already caused chaos. He frightened my other sons cat, who climbed up the curtains. He jumped on his dad and scratched his eye.

They left with a big bag of gifts and drove to spend the holiday season with her mum and dad. This was her first Christmas spending some time with us and her boyfriend, our son. In the past, he has driven up on boxing day.

Then, the afternoon was spent with our eldest son, his wife, and her family. Not forgetting the two grandchildren. What a day – sharing good food, love, and laughter. And gifts a plenty.

If there were no gifts and less food. The simple acts of giving time and sharing time would be sufficient.

I have a phone full of photos and a heart bursting with love and pride for my family.

Im thinking of family members not with us, who I would love to share these special times with.

Twas the week before Christmas.

Well, 4 days to be precise.

I am looking after my grandchildren tomorrow. An enthusiastic girl of 6 1/2, and an enquisitive boy of 5 years and 3 months precisely! As precise as he is.

Our tree is up and sparkly. There are lights up and down the stairs and in the doorways. There are some presents sitting around. Not for them, I’ve removed all theirs to a safe place of hiding.

My problem will be if they ask me the dreaded question!

Who brings our presents? Is Santa real? Why have you got presents under your tree?

I think I need to ask their dad what story I’m working with this year…

Don’t forget yourself!

Hubby and I attempt to take some time off from a caring role each week. It might be a trip to the garden centre for a coffee, or a visit to a green space for a walk.

It’s very much needed as the time goes on and my father in law becomes more confused and anxious about things.

Mostly about money, finance,bills etc. For someone who talked with high flying executives about multi million pound budgets for the civil service, the understanding of figures is slipping away.

So conversation becomes fraught and challenging without understanding. Over and over again. Repeating the same things, in a different way.

So, we have to take away some of those challenges, without removing all his independence totally. We still talk about money, we watch the news together, listen to political discussions that have financial implications for us all. And try to help him understand his confused brain as much as we can.

Often we come away physically exhausted. But more often it’s the emotional side that is draining. And we hear one another saying ‘he’s getting worse isn’t he?’ On a daily basis.

I think he knows too. I had a phone call on Saturday evening to apologise for his behaviour. He got frustrated with me because he asked me about some finances we had talked about. It’s all saved on my phone for ease. I found it, we talked and he was OK. I closed the information down. And he asked me the same thing 5 min later, but because I had to explain I needed to find it again – he got frustrated.

We had already decided Sunday would be a ‘day off’. And made sure things were in place to allow us to do this.

We went to the coast. Our go to place to clear our heads. And boy – was it needed! We had a bracing walk along the sea front, it was chilly and windy. But we sat outside a cafe with our coffee and cake – and talked about us, and watched some wind surfer’s. We laughed and talked of future plans.

Today is another day. Hospital appointment, visit to the bank. But I – we feel refreshed to start another week.

Don’t forget yourself. You may not always come first, but you need to place yourself somewhere at the top of the list. The further down that list you are – the harder it is to recharge your batteries. You cannot support others without looking after yourself!

The elusive family

Isn’t it funny that something you have been searching for a long time, was right within arm’s reach all along?

It’s a problem probably only a few of us can appreciate. When your adopted, that feeling of not belonging in a family. Looking for something else, that elusive feeling of being part of the same tribe, familiar looks and the same DNA. I’d dreamt all my life of belonging.

What a load of old tosh!

My maternal grandmother kept saying that if I didn’t behave she would send me back to where I came from. That didn’t help the feeling of not belonging. My dad was the youngest of his siblings, he married late and they didn’t adopt me for another 10 years. My mum was in the middle of her siblings, two older and two younger. So I’m now at a disadvantage before I start, the youngest runt of the cousins. All older than me, being closer together than I was.

I moved away when I was 19, most of them were married and established with their own families by then. I lost contact. It didn’t worry me.

I didn’t ‘belong’ anyway.

I did find the youngest cousin on my adopted mother’s side on a genealogy site – he was 14 years older than me and luckily was the family historian. He had made up a great tree of 4 generations back, I learned so much from it.

My adopted father’s side was different. I had lost touch altogether. I searched social media in the hope they were interested in the town they had lived in till they moved away. And then one day – there she was. My dad’s niece, commenting on a link to the village she had grown up in. The cousin who I had been a bridesmaid for, whose mum had taught me to make French omelettes when I was younger in her kitchen. I tentatively sent her a message, and opened the flood gates of communication. She had been hoping to find me, I had been hoping to find her.  She too is the family historian, thankfully. She has so much useful family information, photographs and anecdotes, conversations and personal memories. She remembers my dad fondly her uncle Trevor.

We met. Her husband and my husband sitting on the periphery of the room like two china cats- while we caught up on 50 years of lost time. It has been an incredible experience, and one I am so very grateful for.

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I was looking to belong
to mix with those who looked like me
to mix with those with shared the same DNA.

We’d laugh at the same jokes
we’d share the same parentage
well one at least!
We’d belong in the same tribe.

I found some who came so close
I reached out, and almost got to touch
but just as it was offered
it was snatched away.

Fear I’d got too close?
Fear I’d find out?
Fear of a family secret?
Fear of a past history?

Rejected again I kept searching.
Then the unexpected happened.

I found someone!
Someone unexpected, from my past
someone who knew my life –
intimately.
Knew my family secrets, didn’t judge.
Was happy to have me back!

All those years of fruitless searching
for the family who wasn’t to be
to finally find someone
who had been with me from the very beginning!

Billy Joel

What evokes memories for you? For me its music and songs.

I hear a song, or a particular singer, and it takes me instantly back to a time when those songs were being
played on the radio, or on an old record player. It drags me back to a different time, and often a different kind of life.

I was washing the dishes today, when I thought I would listen to some songs by Billy Joel. For those of us of a certain age, those songs will take you right back to the 70’s & 80’s! His songs were so very innocent, to me at least. All about America and the different types of people who lived there, the Italians, rock and roll and Jazz.

In the early 80’s I shared a house with a group of people from all walks of life. A university student & a guy who was a small time drug dealer amongst other things. A chef and his girlfriend who worked in a restaurant in Putney, South West London- they lived a topsy-turvey life, working evenings, and late into the night. Coming home anywhere between 11 o’clock and midnight. We can’t forget they didn’t have those late night licences and opening hours then.  Neighbours would turn up – and the party would begin -the mad mechanic called Steve and the guy who was an artist and a writer who looked like cat weasel with his wild grey hair and beard and his amazing knitted jumpers, they were the few I remembered! Have you ever tried to sleep when there is a ‘party’ going on? Me neither I’m a very sociable person when I want to be.   Of course it was very bohemian life style – mattresses on the floor, and old leather sofas. The loud music and the ‘cigarettes’ being passed around. They soon got fed up with asking me to partake, I wasn’t interested. Very naïve of me their life style – but I was a 20 year old, not long out of the Welsh valleys.  In fact I have to say I had no idea about that life style.

What a short interesting time in my life that was. We all moved to the YMCA in Surbiton in 1981 after the lease of the house expired. A short life lesson learned for me I know. And as Billy Joel is still playing, it again takes me back to that house where I celebrated my 21^st Birthday and learned to appreciate neat Jack Daniels.

36 Steps

13 steps from the street to the house,
13 from the back of the house to the garden,
10 from the garden to the lane at the back.

A treacherous journey between the grey walls of hand hewn rock,
and green moss.
Slipping and sliding over wet slabs of paving.
To the house,
to the garden,
to the lane at the back.

The outside lavvy, a cold and scary place
spiders ready to jump,
just as you settled in for your constitutional.
The cold wet chain hanging from the white porcelain tank.
Daren’t spend too long,
not even ½ pennies worth!

Ivy covered walls to the garden,
The first step too tall for little legs.
The 2^nd 3^rd and 4^th much easier.
Then up to the top –
you felt you had already climbed the mountain!

The sloping garden, no grass
but full of plants and flowers.
A fir tree to climb
and a shed, with a coal hatch never used!
The shallow steps up to the lane.
And freedom.

Blackberries to pick
Floxgloves to wear on fingertips
Chickens to tease,
horses to feed,
paths to climb,
newts to catch,
tadpoles in jars.
And mountains to slide down on trays!

Those were the days of my youth!!!!