Extreme Knitting Redhead: Just a quicky

Friday, March 21, 2014

Just a quicky

I'm rushing around like a headless chicken at the moment, trying to get ready to head off to Oxford for the ARUK conference next week! Very exciting.

In a moment of calm yesterday afternoon I headed out into the orchard to pick some flowers for the kitchen. I bypassed the brightly coloured daffodils and chose these really delicate white and pale yellow ones and teamed them with some leucojums, aka Spring Snowflakes.

They just looked so clean and fresh and they smell divine. When I came down this morning I was struck at how lovely they looked in artificial light set against the kitchen blind.

Leucojums are like giant snowdrops with enormous strappy leaves. They are really happy in our heavy clay soil either in full sun or part shade and help to brighten up a dark corner.

The inside of these daffodils is most unusual with pale yellow ruffles and dangly bits!

My crochet flowers are complete now. There are pentagons, hexagons, heptagons and octagons with a couple of squares thrown in for good measure. Now I need to outline them all and join them using the join-as-you-go method. I can't wait to see the finished article and watch my friend's face when she sees it.

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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.