Extreme Knitting Redhead: skies

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Skies and birds

I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas. Ours was quiet as usual but as a change we did a Zoom call with Mike's sister and her family rather than the usual phone call. It took a bit of fiddling around before it got set up OK, thanks to Mike, and it was so nice to actually see them all in the flesh. I'm still taking photos of the skies and was very excited when 2 winter visitors arrived on the patio - a Pied Wagtail and a Grey Wagtail most likely taking a Winter visit down South to our slightly warmer clime than Scotland where most of them live in large flocks. Such sweet little birds!

Now for some more skies:

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Last minute yet again

I really do seem to have lost the blog-love at the moment which is a shame as I do enjoy looking back over the years and remembering how everything has developed. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose (with apologies for the lack of accents!). There was another marathon on Remembrance day, that was number 202, and it was especially poignant as some of our regular men from the armed forces were missing - 2 suffering from PTSD and 1 who sadly took his own life. It made the 2 minutes silence even more poignant looking out over the Channel at Samphire Hoe on what was a very dreary grey day but when the sea was the calmest I'd ever seen it. I found out later that 1200 desperate people had made the crossing from France to Dover on that day in ridiculously flimsy boats.

The amazing clouds and skies I saw have encouraged me to start taking photos of the sky at home each day so there will be lots more sky photos in future. I'm currently plotting my next fund-raising plans for 2022 and top of the list so far is another 100 mile event with the possibility of attempting 10 marathons in 10 days (gulp!). I'll keep on turning the ideas over in my mind and the solution will appear eventually. Of course, if Covid is still a major issue then all plans will go on hold yet again. Around the garden the colours of Autumn have been stunning and now all but the oak trees have shed their leaves.

I've nearly finished the Skog sweater and I've really enjoyed the gentle flow of plain stockinette punctuated by the pattern on the sleeves. I did a small swatch to see how the Kid Silk Haze worked when doubled for the motif:

Here's the 2nd sleeve part way through the pattern and below it is what the stretchy cast-on looks like:

Oddly enough I haven't felt the urge to crochet at all this year which is most unusual and needs to be rectified and I am definitely going to try harder to keep up to date on my blog as it's amazing how much I forget if I don't write about it as things happen.

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.