Extreme Knitting Redhead: Lots to catch up with

Friday, November 21, 2008

Lots to catch up with

As usual there has been lots going on with little time to blog but I've got a spare few minutes now so here I go. A couple of weeks ago we had a photographer round taking photos for Best magazine. Tracey is a freelance photographer and regularly takes photos of famous singers/celebs, having recently done a studio shoot with Britney Spears.

She wanted to take photos outside with just a hint of Christmas so she'd come prepared with a Christmas wreath, tinsel etc. The article is about the first Christmas after mum died, how we felt and how I got through it and will appear some time in December. They also asked me what we intend to do this year and as we do not have any family we are thinking of helping out at a homeless shelter so they didn't want the photos to be full of decorations etc inside the house as that wouldn't give the right impression.

Anyway, the weather was vile with winds gusting and heavy bouts of rain and we had to keep dodging back inside. In the last photo you can see part of the front garden where Mike has been playing with the digger! All those stones and bricks will be reused for edging somewhere.

I was wearing my Alzheimer's Research Trust as I always do for photo shoots but she didn't want me to display it so I wore my fluffy purple cardigan over the top of it so at least their colour was visible. I'm hoping that they will have mentioned the charity in the article but I haven't seen the final copy. Fingers crossed anyway.

We're busy decorating the dining room which is very exciting because it is the last room downstairs to do (except for the hallway but that doesn't count as a room!).

I had 2 little helpers the other day. It was raining and windy so Tango came to have a hop round.

Tinker kept a close eye on him. He's grown up with bunnies so knows not to attack them yet he still catches and devours the wild bunnies - not a pretty sight but quite natural for him.

Bunnies love to climb and it didn't take Tango long to investigate the steps!

My Oregon cardigan is progressing well and I will definitely try to take some photos of it over the weekend.

2 comments:

Shan said...: Hey that's pretty exciting, eh?!; November 21, 2008 at 4:11:00 PM PST
Marina said...: I'm glad the wreath isn't yours! Too early! We have Thanksgiving to get through first, over here.; November 21, 2008 at 4:20:00 PM PST

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.