Extreme Knitting Redhead: Sunday musings

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Sunday musings

More brioche anyone?

I am really enjoying playing with brioche stitch. It's challenging yet doable and results in such beautiful patterns.

The thing I'm working on now is called the Alex scarf and for this I'm using Rowan felted tweed DK in purple and beige. The pattern involves lots of increases and decreases but is fine once you've got the pattern into your head.

My LSR (long, slow run) with Asthma today

I'd love to be writing that it was as good as last weekend but it wasn't! Why not? Asthma, that's why not! I've been fine all week as the weather has been warmer but yesterday the temperature plummeted and this morning was very cold, with a biting wind.

I knew it was going to be a tough run when I got up and sounded like Darth Vader. Even Mike noticed that my voice was very gravelly first thing. There was no point in whingeing and feeling sorry for myself so I just had to deal with it.

This is what I looked like for most of my 15 mile run. It may look odd but it helps warm the air before I take it into my lungs. Of course some of the villagers commented that I looked like a highwayman or worse.

Why is it than when it's windy I always seem to be running into the wind, even when I've changed directions? LOL! Anyway, it was an undulating/hilly route and it took me 15 minutes longer than last week. Never mind, it's all 'time on my feet' which is a very important part of my training

When my runs are difficult I always take more photos so here they are:

A herd of deer, startled as I ran past them

Witches' Brooms in the bare branches of Birch trees

Catkins in the hedgerow

Beautiful carvings on the Lych Gate at Beckley church

Mud pattern on a lane - a leaf, feather, stingray?

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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.