Extreme Knitting Redhead: Happy New Year to everyone!

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year to everyone!

Wishing everyone who pops along to read about my exploits a very happy and healthy 2010.

I took this first photo to catch the moon as she was setting as it was looking absolutely wonderful. There was a blue moon last night but we didn't get to see it as it was very cloudy.

By the time I'd fed the horses the snow clouds had swept across the valley and started to deposit their magical flakes.

After lunch it was time for the first run of the year and I took the camera with me in case I spotted anything of interest for Mike. This one is a view into the woods near Strawberry Hole.

This part of the lane often appears in paintings by local artists as the light is wonderful and the colour of the tree trunks is simply beautiful.

This is a view taken from Lordine Lane. I love the undulations of the land.

My run was most enjoyable and done just for fun - no distance in mind and no speedwork. I covered about 7 miles in all which is fine at this stage in my marathon schedule.

With 17 marathons and a Guinness World Record for 'The Longest Scarf Knitted Whilst Running a Mararthon' under my belt in the past 4 years you'd think that I'd probably have had enough. Wrong! 17 is such a silly number and 20 sounds much better so here's what I have planned - a treble of marathons on consecutive weekends.

However, as usual, there's a twist: I wanted to link in with the Alzheimer's Research Trust's 'Memories Matter' campaign and so I thought about my knitting exploits and realised there was an obvious link - crochet! You see, there is a crochet stitch called a 'treble' and I will be running 3 marathons. Even better, I will be creating a series of crochet chain links, in the way that our brains make connections that are sadly damaged by dementia. QED!

The marathons I will be running are the Brighton Marathon on 18th April, the Virgin London Marathon on 25th April where I will be attempting another Guinness World Record but this time for the 'Longest Crochet Chain whilst running a marathon' and the Three Forts Marathon (which is actually an ultra marathon of 27 miles) on 3rd May.

I might need to do some serious training for that lot!

1 comment:

Jimbo said...: good luck darlin'! hope you enjoy the runs. See you in London!; January 1, 2010 at 2:05:00 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.