Something New.

Hellooooo, anyone still there?  I'm sorry that I have been quiet so long.  Sometimes the busyness of life causes us to have to re-evaluate what is essential in our list of daily tasks and sadly the blogging has been very near to the bottom of the list.  I have tried to keep my Mrs Craftypants site going as this is turning into quite a busy little business but writing for pleasure, that was no longer a pleasure.

Something or rather somethings have got my writing fingers itching again.  Firstly I was asked to be a administrator on a facebook page that my lovely friend Katharine runs ........ for writers! Secondly the death of the music star Prince, just 10 years older than myself.  The significance of this making my writing fingers itch is the sudden realisation that i have a lot of stories inside me and if I don't tell them they will disappear for ever!

The book that longs to come out is one I promised my late mum that I would write a very long time ago.  She had a very interesting and somewhat harrowing start in life as a war baby, born to a German mother in Hamburg, Germany who had a brief affair with an English soldier at the end of the second world war.  I have managed to find a few stories of American soldiers and French soldiers fathering babies with German mothers, however trying to even find statistics for the English fathers is near impossible.  The UK government unlike the American government did not intervene with policies to help German mothers, for example giving them a right to become alien citizens.

So the story must be told and I think the best way to get myself back in the writing habit is to have a go at doing a blog at least once a week!  That is my goal for now and hopefully I can use my time wisely enough to try and commit to at least 10 minutes every day to research and write.  Just 10 minutes, that is all I have at the moment, it's so easy to flitter way 10 minutes on nothing, so at least now I will have something to show for those particular 10 minutes!

So, same time, same place next week, bye for now xxxx

Ten minutes of writing.

My blogging friend Katharine over at 10 minute writer set a challenge on her facebook page to see how many words one could write in 10 minutes!  So this is my attempt at writing something that is not copied and that makes some sort of sense.  Sense to me anyway.  There are so many topics that come into my head during the day which I would like to blog about but then the time comes for me to sit down and the energy level to consider typing dips.  Why is this, could it be that Candy Crush is finally killing off the brain cells and wickedly keeping me from the key board?  Or could it be that since getting my tablet it is far easier to just surf around and not type anything?  I don't like typing on my tablet - it is just not the same as having a keyboard.  This means to write I have to make the extra effort of getting my laptop out and booting it up.  Oh the problems of the modern world!!!!  And most of the worlds population do not have enough to eat!!

So now my brain is starting to dry up.  What else can I type, I could tell you about the wonderful transformation that is taking shape in our garden.  Since moving into our home 14 years ago we have always been making do in the garden.  Trying to make the most of what was left us, which I have to say was very little.  Then this winter we had a series of storms which finally pulled down the fences.  We have had the two that we are responsible for re done and this week managed to get them painted.  The other one which we are not responsible for was also damaged in the storms but our neighbours decided to just use some old battered second hand panels to replace the ones that were severely damaged.  So this morning I set to with my daughter some fern panelling, a hammer and some nails and we have now screened off the horrid panels and it looks wonderful.  Maybe when I have finished my 10 minutes I will go take a photo so that you can see just how wonderful it is looking.  We also got the builders who did our fence to take up and relay to of the patio areas.  Making them both totally weed free and hopefully that will last.  So now there is just the area around the house that still needs relaying but we will have to wait for funds to appear before we can get that done.  In the meantime at least we will not have so much to weed!

So we are almost at my favourite part of gardening - that is the tidying up of the beds, maybe some new plants and definitely some pots that need filling with beautiful flowers.  I so hope the weather this summer is conducive to me being able to sit out and enjoy the garden this year.  Maybe we will even get in a few more BBQ's, we have already been lucky enough to have one.  That turned into a great bonfire  as we had the barby in the fire pit and then filled it with wood afterwards and had a great roaring fire.  Well this is it my 10 minutes is almost over.  Now I shall have to cut and paste this into a word document to find out just how many words I have managed to type in 10 minutes.  Laters xxxxxxxxxxxx

ps. just so you know the answer is 595 - not to shabby I have to say!

Decisions and Priorities.

For the last week my mind has been mulling over a situation that is causing me a lot of angst.  For those that do not know, my mother took her own life a year last February.  She had been struggling with her mental health since the death of my sister 4 years prior to her death.  She then lost her soul mate, my dad just over a year prior to her death.  This caused a critical psychotic episode which meant she had to be hospitalised.  As she was staying with me 200 miles from 'home' when this happened she was hospitalised near me to.  After three months she was well enough for discharge and she was encouraged by the hospital staff to stay in the area so that she could have continuity of service.

The mum that was discharged was quite different from the one that had gone in.  For the first time in a long time she was talking about her very troubled, abused and traumatic life as a war baby in post war Germany. This life continued right up until she met and married  my dad at the age of 18.  She was treating herself to new clothes (and bought me things when it was not a special occasion - this never used to happen).  She was going swimming with me regularly and often persuaded me to get on and go even when I was low.  She went away on holiday with a friend.  She was making plans of things she wanted to do.  She rented a bungalow with an overgrown garden and was in her element sorting it out and making a vegetable plot.  This state remained for about 7 or 8 months.

She had booked to go away again in the October/November (with the same friend to the same place), she had hoped this would help her over the horrid first anniversary of my dad dying and the anniversary of my sister's passing.  By the time she went I had already noticed she was not so good.  She was far more anxious about what she would wear and couldn't make decisions about buying new things for the holiday.  She then had the trauma of discovering when she got back that her landlord had put the bungalow on the market without even telling her.

Within weeks of returning she told me that she wanted to die and was struggling to stay alive.  Having not heard her talk about the community mental health team that had been looking after her and knowing that her Community Psychiatric Nurse (cpn) had moved on, the only course of action I could think of was to contact the GP.  They were great, they saw her straight away and were horrified at the state of her and the fact that she appeared to have fallen through the net with the community service.  By this time she was asking to be readmitted to hospital.  It is only now with hindsight that I can see how big a deal this was.  Her time in hospital had not been a 'good' experience, she had not been happy to be there.  Therefore asking to be admitted was probably a very difficult decision for her to have made.  The GP got onto the community team and arranged for someone to come out that afternoon (it was Friday).  I made sure I stayed with her all the time.

When the CPN ( one I had never met or had any contact with) arrived, she informed me that she had taken over mums care and I should have contacted them not the GP.  However when I informed her that I had no idea that they were still involved as no-one had contacted me since the old cpn told me he was leaving, she was at least apologetic that she had not been in touch with me.  She then proceeded to tell my mum that she could not be admitted back to hospital, the unit she had been in was now a dementia unit and there were no beds.  A discussion had been had before she came out to visit with the community psychiatrist and her medication had been increased.  Medication was one area that I had refused to get involved with - I have enough trouble controlling my own!

By December there had been no improvement, if anything she was slowly going more and more into a depressive stupor.  She had almost stopped going swimming with me.  I was having to go and fetch her to come round for tea, whereas before she had happily walked around.  I had found her somewhere to live - a lovely place just around the corner from my home.  She was anxious about buying it, but was doing the purchase herself along with the estate agent and solicitor.  I had to ask my brother to invite mum to his for Christmas to give me a break as now my caring role was becoming a daily activity.  He was very shocked to see how downhill she had gone.

At the end of January she had a review with her CPN, I had spoken to the cpn before the meeting to inform her that mum wasn't washing and was spending most of her time in bed.  During the review, mum was very quiet but voiced her anxiety about the move and life in general.

Then February arrived, a date for completion on the property was made, everything was set for exchange.  Then out of the blue I could not get hold of her.  After eventually having to break into her property I found her conscious but unresponsive and a pile of medication packaging next to her.  After being blue lighted to the hospital it took about 6 hours before I was finally informed that she was not going survive.  I was told it could take several days for her to die, thankfully she only lasted until the following lunch time.

Because of the nature of her death we have had to have a coroners inquest.  The coroners clerk regularly called and updated me on the process of the inquest as reports came in (or didn't in the case of the community services).  I was then given a date in December to attend and all the reports they had received were sent to me to read before the court appearance.  However I noticed that there was still no report from the community mental health services.  I said this to the coroners clerk when we arrived, he then went and discussed this with the coroner.  It was then decided by the coroner that the case should be adjourned as it was vital for a full report from the community team to be there as they were the only ones with regular contact with mum.


Last week I finally had another letter from the coroners office to say a new date had been set for next week and they also attached a report from the mental health team.  This was no ordinary report, it was a critical incident report which they had, had to complete for the health trust.  It was dated MARCH 2013, just a month after mum had died.  So I am left wondering WHY?????, why wasn't I informed that the report had been done, why had they not sent the report back when information was first requested from them by the coroner.  Why was so much of the information contradictory and in some places wrong.  Why was the appendix that should have been attached with a time line on it of their interventions with mum missing.  Why was there not mention of the change in CPN.  To say I was furious does not give justice to how I immediately felt.  Grief and anger came clashing into mind.  One week on, thankfully I am becoming calmer about it all.

So now, what do I do?  I decided to try and get hold of the person that wrote the report or one of the people on the management team that were named on the report.  A call was made 5 days ago, I was told I would be called back and that still has not happened.

How much time do I invest in this?  I am concerned that I am going to get to the inquest hearing next week and get too emotional to voice any of the above whys to the coroner.  Will he be interested anyway?  Trying to discern the right course of action to take has been exhausting.  Fortunately I have been able to talk through with my counsellor this process and she has helped me to look at how it is all affecting me.

Nothing I can do can bring my mum back.  However if I do nothing about these concerns and I keep them to myself, it is going to feel like I'm keeping some sort of secret inside of me.  This secret will never go away, I might find I can box it up and put it on a shelf in my memory, but it will never go away and as my mums experience has shown me, sometimes those secrets can manifest decades later when the mind comes under pressure.

So I have written this all down.  That is my starting point.  Next I need to sit down with the horrid report and mark clearly the bits of it that are wrong or that I do not understand (contradictions).  I am then planning to email the coroners clerk on monday with all my questions, so that I am not able to voice them during the inquest they can still be brought up.  I think I have also made peace with myself that if the coroner decides that no further action is warranted, I have to accept this.  However if this is the case I can still write to the health trust and let them know how viewing that report almost a year after it was written caused me too much upset.  I can also let them know my concerns about the details of the report.

If on the other hand the coroner thinks it needs further investigation, I can leave this to him to do.  It is not something I can do.  I may have quite a strong moral and ethical stance on injustice, but I do need to look after myself as well.  I still have a young family to look after, I still have a niece in an adolescent mental health unit, for whom I considered next of kin even though she is under the care of social services.  I need someone else to fight this battle for me if indeed it needs fighting.  Hopefully I can start to let go of all this unrest inside of me.  I am very much hoping that by this time next week I will be at peace with all the decisions that have been made.

Swimming.

Picture taking from Google images, not the real thing!

Hello!  I am still here.  I thought I had better come and say Hi.  Life has been a little (ok VERY) consumed by a wedding dress making project.  I shall be blogging about that another time over on my Mrs Craftypants blog after the wedding next weekend, when the Bride has had the opportunity to show all her friends her dress first.

I thought I would write about swimming today.  (I know the last one was whirlpools - there is obviously something watery going on here).

Since mid May I have been enrolled at a very lovely independent gym with fabulous indoor and outdoor swimming pools.  It is at least a  20 minute trek to get there in the car (as opposed to our local baths which are 10 minutes away).  However the luxury of the place plus the expense means I am totally taking full advantage of my membership.

I arrived today to find the outdoor pool was empty.  I slid into the wonderfully warm water and out of the slight chill that was in the air.  I took myself off to one of the lanes and set forth with my usual rhythm, a length on my front followed by a length on my back.  I can continue like this for an hour.  I know that on my front it takes either 24 or 25 strokes to get from one end to the other.  And on my back it takes between 21 and 22 arm strokes.  I love this rhythm, it also means I don't have to think of much and I don't bang my head on the side of the pool when going backwards.

With the luxury of the pool to myself I was revelling in watching the water still ahead of me whilst going forwards.  Whilst on my back the sky kept me entertained.  Pure blue at times, the occasional fluffy white cloud, the odd grey bubbly cloud, birds, aeroplanes, butterflies, bees - complete bliss.  I stroke away feeling blessed beyond belief.

Then I hear a splashy swishy sound, and I am certain I was not making it.  I was on my back so could not see what was behind me, but I guessed it - my peace had been shattered.  If only it had been a shattering of the pure bliss I was experiencing, but it wasn't.  Big Splashy Man had come into the pool.  Not content with  taking a space on the other side of the pool from me, he came right up against the lane divider next to me.  Within seconds the water was choppy.  Every time we passed each other I had chlorinated water splashed all over my face and up my nose.  On one occasion as I was just finishing off my back length he completely submerged me and left me gagging and gasping for air.  I was going to say something, but he had no idea of the carnage he was causing and continued a pace.

The peace was gone, a few more folk came into the pool and suddenly my back lengths of 21 or 22 strokes were taking 24 to 25.  On my front it felt like I was swimming in treacle.  The edge of the pool taking forever to come into reach of my fingertips.

I looked at the clock and saw that I had done almost an hour, I could hear my friends voice in my head, reminding me as she had to take it easy (having been ill over the weekend).  I stopped and looked around and saw big black clouds looming.  Sometimes it really is about knowing when to get out.

Sitting in the sauna afterwards I was musing on how much my grief is like Big Splashy Man.  I rarely know when it is going to rear it's head, however there are triggers which mean I know it may well be coming.  For me at the moment, it is seeing the lights on in the house where my mum used to live.  Or looking at the house she was going to buy just around the corner from us.  Even shopping in our little town centre where I would often bump into her.  Like Big Splashy Man, I have no control over it's intensity, sometimes it is worse than others.  It is also quite interesting to note that it is often following moments of complete bliss and feeling blessed that  Big Splashy Man, rears his head.

After a lovely quiet time in the Sauna, I decided to treat myself to 10 minutes in the indoor jacuzzi.  Once more I was peaceful.  I was also feeling very smug that I had been right about those big grey clouds, they were still hanging over the outdoor pool.  Then would you believe it Big Shouty Man got into the jacuzzi next to mine and started having a very loud conversation with his friend.  Typical I was just thinking when horror of horrors - Big Splashy Man got into MY jacuzzi.  That was too much, it was obviously time for me to go home.


post script - I do apologise to Mr Splashy Man and Mr Shouty Man for associating you with my grief as I have, it really is nothing personal, I am sure you are perfectly lovely people!!!!!!!!!!!!

post post script - the swimming is doing me a lot of good, I'm going 3 times a week and have so far lost over 5 kg :o) x
 

Dear Sis - letter number one (I have a feeling there might be more).

I can't believe it is more than 2 years since we last had a conversation.  I know we communicated a tiny bit while you were in hospital those last 3 weeks before you died, but I have to admit that it wasn't really much of a conversation!

I have just been reading Dawn French's book 'Dear Fatty' in which she writes letters to all the people who she feels have played a major part in her life.  Lots of them are to her Dad who died when she was 18, which got me thinking maybe that would be a good way to try and get my thoughts down for you - and for your daughter.

'A' lasted for 6 months at Mum and Dads after you left us (sorry that is just how it feels sometimes, but I realise that this makes it sound as though you chose it and I don't know whether you did or not).  I know it was all part of the hurting process that she was going through but she really did make her point in very dramatic style!  I also think her then new school made a lot of mistakes, with no-one having a clue how to help a child like her.  I can see you raising your eyebrows at that - how many times did you face people who didn't have a clue!

Do you feel cheated dying just at a point where you were starting to do things (like walk!) after so many years of being able to do nothing? If there is one thing that I get very angry about for you it is that.  Maybe I just like the way it made me feel after all those years of moaning at you telling you to get a grip on the life you still had.  I wonder how you feel now about those dark times - do you remember them at all?

I wish I knew how much of those three weeks in hospital you are aware of.  I have still not been able to talk to our brother about it, I know he was the last one to have a conversation with you even though you were in a bit of a delirious state, I know you must have been reasonably with it, as I'm told you told him you were not afraid of dying.  I find that a bit hard to stomach really, surely you didn't want to leave A?  Or did you just know that you were not going to be able to give her what she was going to need through those demanding teenage years?  I'm not sure whether I feel proud of you if it's the latter for honesty or cross with you for thinking anyone else was going to be able to do it!  I most certainly don't feel as though I am doing a very good job at the moment.  Whatever, it's happened now and maybe I am just jealous that he was close by enough to be able to help and have that conversation and I wasn't.

Poor mum is struggling, I think the unresolved grief she had for her mother dying when she was so young, has prevented her from mourning you yet.  Dad soldiers on, I still don't fully understand him, I do know though that he is totally devoted to mum and for that I am grateful.  Just after the first anniversary of your demise he managed to go and have a stroke that certainly came out of no where just like your  ruptured bowel!  He was very fortunate to get to the specialist unit near them where he was scanned and on clot busters within an hour of it all happening.  It has aged him though, he looks more like Grandpa now, I don't suppose you would remember him to well as I only just do.  It's quite shocking to see someone go from looking early 60's as he was to in his 80's in a couple of weeks.  That reminds me - were you aware of how many grey hairs you had?  Maybe they only arrived in the time you were in intensive care, I certainly remember how it started to fall out in that last couple of weeks.

Well I am going to have to sign off for now, the children have had their tea but it baths and showers for all three tonight.  Tuesday is the only night of the week when none of them are out at something!

Love you more J x.

Jane Austens House

Last week I had my step mother-in-law from Manchester staying from Tuesday to Saturday. She has always been a regular visit to see us in the South, however with all that has happened to us in the last 18 months (the death of my mother in law and my sister amongst other things) we have not been able to accommodate her. I have not been physically or mentally up to doing much and when discussing what we would do on Friday I was not sure I would be joining her and my husband.



That is until I heard them talking about going to see Jane Austens house in Chawton (about 40 minutes away from us). You can visit their website here. We really did have the most amazing few hours.



It was lovely to be looking around without the children there - that sounds terrible doesn't it? I would love to go around again now (and I will do), taking my youngest, having read all the information on this first visit I know that I would be able to help her investigate her own interests.

It is years since I have read any of Jane Austens work, but now, having seen where much of it was written and knowing so much more about her life it has definitely inspired me to go back to her writings. There were so many personal letters and gifts on display that talk or show things that were put into books.

There were lots of costumes of the era on display, it was great to be able to go right close to them (some were not behind glass, being reproductions made in exactly the way they would have been). Getting so close I could see just how parts were stitched by hand - WOW - they were so intricate, so delicate.


Being in the actual rooms, standing next to the actual table that she wrote on, touched me very deeply. After looking around the house we went for a short walk to the village church where her sister and mother are buried. Walking those steps knowing this was the same journey she herself would have made to the church was just awesome. I had never realised before what sort of a life my name sake had had, especially her dying so young (41 almost my age). We do all have a short time on earth, I am very thankful that Jane Austen left such a wonderful gift in her writing for us to cherish generations down the line.



We also visited Cassandras Cup, for lunch which was absolutely exquisite, decorated with beautiful china tea cups and with a menu that made me feel quite giddy. We enjoyed this so much that noticing that they do Christmas lunches in December my husband and I have booked ourselves in - there were very few places available, so it obviously does have a tremendous reputation. What's more we did notice they have a B&B there, maybe we will have to try and have a hide-away there some time.

So anyone now coming to visit us is going to be encouraged to go along, it may not have inspired my writing too much but boy it has so enticed my creativity I am almost fit to burst.


If you do visit the site, why not look at their blog - it looks quite interesting, I didn't find out too much about their resident writer, Rebecca Smith, though her recently published novel looks very intriguing. You can find out more about her from here.

Finally I was so touched by this prayer which is on display in Janes beautiful handwriting that I thought I would copy it out for you to see:

A PRAYER BY JANE AUSTEN

Give us grace almighty father, so to pray, as to deserve to be heard, to address thee with our hearts, as with our lips. Thou art everywhere present, from thee no secret can be hid. May the knowledge of this, teach us to fix our thoughts on thee, with reverence and devotion that we pray not in vain.

May we now, and on each return of night, consider how the past day has been spent by us, what have been our prevailing thoughts, words and actions during it, and how far we can acquit ourselves of evil.

Have we thought irreverently of thee, have we disobeyed thy commandments, have we neglected any known duty, or willingly given pain to any human being? Incline us to ask our hearts these questions oh! God, to save us from deceiving ourselves by pride or vanity.
Give us a thankful sense of the blessings in which we live, of the many comforts of our lot; that we may not deserve to lose them by discontent or indifference. Hear us almighty God, for his sake who has redeemed us, and taught us thus to pray.

Amen.