Extreme Knitting Redhead: July 2022

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Sneaking in a post before July is over!

Now where do I begin? Knitting? Too hot! Mike's cardigan is virtually finished and just awaiting buttons. Running? Yep, lots of that as it's getting scarily close to my 10 marathons in 10 days challenge (trying not to think too much about that!). Wildilfe? Let's start right there as we have been blessed with so much wild loveliness recently: The garden is certainly not looking its best right now and there are wildfires breaking out in the countryside. Everywhere is tinder dry and the village pub had a scary moment recently when their pizza oven caught fire. Thankfully it was spotted quickly and 2 fire engines came racing along the lane and put it out PDQ. Phew! Our wild visitors have been delighting us with their visits most mornings and first we have Mrs Duck and her babies:

Oh my goodness, she'd been sitting on a makeshift nest behind some large rocks in the yard and I really didn't expect her to manage to incubate the eggs without being discovered by Rooks/Crows/Badgers/Foxes but she did it! When she brought them round to show us she had 10 ducklings in tow. Sadly she lost one after a couple of days but atm she still has 9. They are a delight to watch and a great timewaster. I chuckled at one of the photos as the grass looks so verdant but that's only because it's right beside the water saucer and gets lots of duckling splashes. In the photo where Mrs Duck is sititng down, seemingly on her own, I didn't realise at first that all 10 ducklings were underneath her until a few of them popped out! The deer are still visiting every couple of days and are happily munching their way through crabapples/apples/pears and anything else they fancy!

My weaving continues with lots of samples and I am definitely getting better with my tension and beating. What I haven't quite mastered yet is the righthandside which seems to be slacker then the left. I'm sure practice will make perfect eventually (well, I hope so!).

There's been lots of run-training going on ahead of my challenge and I had a lovely day out at a Long Distance Walkers event a few weeks ago. It was absolutely baking hot but thankfully there was some shelter through woods. It was nice to meet up with some running chums and I tried out my new Garmin watch, which is way too snazzy for me as I won't use half its capability or functions but I did upload the route onto it and followed it OK. It was just over 32 miles so was a good leg-stretcher.

My next crafting project is for Christmas - yes, I know it seems a long way off but this project needs good light so I need to get ahead before the days get much shorter. I'm doing it as a virtual stitch-along organised by a lovely lady who used to run a Wool Store in a local village but decided to create a workshop at home to save the cost of rental. We'll be having a monthly Zoom meeting to see if we're all on track and I'm really looking forward to it. Shelley and I were very excited when my package arrived:

I hope everyone reading this is safe and well as there's just so much uncertainty all over the world at the moment.

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.