Extreme Knitting Redhead: Happy New Year!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to one and all. I wish you health and happiness for 2014 and may your troubles be few.

So here we are at the start of another year.

The weather has been vile all night and when I woke up this morning I felt like staying in bed. Anyway, I couldn't as there were animals to tend and so I donned my wet weather gear and squelched into the fields.

I decided to take a couple of Helfies to celebrate - that's half horse, half me photos!

Esther just rolled her eyes as if to say "what on earth's she up to now….?"

Kizzy, on the other hand, refused to oblige and was very grumpy about it (largely because she was trying to eat her brekkie!)

I have now started the first part of my 2014 challenge - too run at least 5k every day for 5 months.

I'd been toying with the idea of running a local 10k race if the weather was OK and in the end I decided to just do it anyway to support the organisers who produce a lot of good races locally. I had been very restrained last night and only had a glass and a bit of red wine just in case I decided to run it and the rain had stopped as I left home. That didn't last long!

As I parked up in Lamberhurst the heavens opened and didn't stop at all. In fact it just got worse and worse and the wind got up too for good measure. The route had to be changed due to flooding and it was exceedingly UPdulating which I don't mind but it wasn't going to be the day for a new personal best time.

I was happy to manage to maintain sub 9 minute milling on all the downhill sections, there weren't any flat bits, and finished in 59:38 which I think is my slowest time ever for a 10k. My Garmin measured it as 6.38 miles which was as close as they could get to 10k given the changes to the course. The best thing was that my asthma didn't bother me at all today.

A massive thank you to all the lovely marshalls who stood around in the cold and wet just so we runners could get another medal. It was a great way to start the new year.

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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.