Sunday 30 May 2010

MY MUM


5th September 1932 - 28th May 2010

Monday 24 May 2010

Up Date

Friday I managed to get up to the V&A to see the quilt exhibition, I'm so glad I went it was well worth the trip. There are some fantastic quilts on show. It is good to go to an exhibition with friends, we had lunch in the members lounge, I'm making use of my new membership. In the afternoon we went into the Grace Kelly exhibition, as others have said, the dresses lacked sparkle without Grace! Hopefully Rachel and I will go together to see the exhibition before it closes!

The vegetable plot is looking a lot healthier Saturday I took the chance on the weather staying fine and planted beans, leeks,squashes and all the usual, here's hoping for a good crop.

Mum is really no better. Ever since she first went into hospital she has been worrying about the 'Christmas Lunch' with her friends. Ever since the company she worked for closed Mum and eight of her friends have met together for lunch in November, some moved away from the area but travel back for the occasion. She has asked them if they could bring it forward, she's to frail to go to a restaurant, so the Nursing Home have said that they will be happy to lay on a special lunch for them. How it will go I really don't know but Mum has been talking about the lunch now since March. I'm hoping that she has a good day.

I think I've mentioned before about Belle, the cat, my blog is named after her. Belle has been ill for years and only 4 weeks ago was at the vets with her ongoing problem, this time the procedure didn't help. A vet we had seen previously said she could have an operation,it would involve removing part of her bowel and it may not work. Towards the end of last week Belle became really poorly and yesterday we took her to the vets, this time the vets said that we should do the kindest thing and Belle was put to sleep. We had Belle for 10 years, she was a timid little thing, lots of people didn't even know we had a cat as she would hide under the bed if someone came to the house and not come out until they left. James once had a friend stay for a week, he never saw Belle, she only came out at night when everyone was in bed.

Sunday 16 May 2010

Get Away

We managed to get away for 4 days last week, it was a last minute booking which worked out really well. What with Iceland sending a volcanic cloud and Mum deteriorating quite fast we cancelled our already booked and looked forward to holiday in the sun,(booked before we new Mum was so ill, when we thought it was depression).I felt that if we did go away I needed to be able to get home within a few hours! So we booked 4 days in a cottage in South Wales, it was in a place called Crugybar, a barn conversion, and it was beautiful! We spent the time relaxing, doing a bit of site seeing and sampling the food and the beer! My favorite meal was laverbread, fried cockles and bacon, not sure it's a dish I'll try to cook at home, but something I'd eat again. Dave did a lot of reading and I did quite a bit of stitching on my Material Girls Project. I did buy some wool, not for socks but for a cardigan for myself, I did get some knitting done while we were driving around, not as much as I thought I would though! Although the weather wasn't up to Canaries temperatures it was fine and we even sat outside on one day for lunch, with our coats on of course.


The Threshing Barn


We found a Threshing Barn that hadn't been converted.

The Cardiganshire Coast.





Mum is really not very good, her appetite has gone and she spends a lot of time asleep. Her wedding ring has had to come off, she has never taken it off in 57 years since my Dad put it there. It's something that she has always felt strongly about, it remained there even when she was pregnant with me and her fingers became so swollen the midwife wanted her to have the ring cut off, she refused. Mum has always been horrified that I take my ring off and sometimes leave it off for long periods of time! I said that maybe she could wear it on her other hand but she wont consider that, I think she feels that the bond has been broken, and she wont talk about it. Her good spirit is still there, and she says "You've got to keep laughing about things or else you'd cry".

While we were away Rachel house and cat sat, to cut out one of the jobs for her we decided to plant out some of our vegetables in the garden. Little did we know that there would be a frost here in the mornings so today we made a trip to the garden center to replace all of our dead veggie plants! When we told Rachel what had happened she said we should have left them in the cold frame and she would have watered them for us! Oh well, these things happen.

Monday 3 May 2010

Just for You



Jan these are for you! Prints by http://mybananabread.tumblr.com/

Veuve Cliquot

Saturday we were up early and off to Mum's,the garden needed to be done. Dave cut the lawns while I pulled a few weeds. We were home in time for James and Becky to call in for lunch, the sun was shining so we sat in the garden. They had been to visit Mum and said that although she was in good spirits she was very shaky and didn't look very well. After spending a bit of time sorting out my workroom, we visited Mum and she was really tired and not at all well.

Sunday we went to see Rachel and Alec on his stall at Brick Lane-Back Yard Market
, they are there most Sundays, we liked two of Alec's prints, we walked away from the stall a few pounds lighter. Luckily Atlantis is not to far away from Brick Lane, we paid them a visit and bought two frames. I just had to buy a few art necessities as we were there! Then we went for long lunch at Carluccios in Spitalfield's. On the way home we visited Dave's Dad, as usual he found plenty of little jobs that needed doing, that keeps him happy for a while. Then we called into see Mum, she was a lot worse than the day before, and had morphine during the morning.

Today we decided not to wait to visit Mum and went this morning, she was much better than the previous two days. She'd had a good night sleep and no morphine, she was showered and had her hair done. The nursing home has a visiting hairdresser once a week. Mum was reminiscing about all the places that we have been together over the last few years. We were finding it difficult to buy her Christmas, Birthday, Mothers Day presents so started taking her out instead, to the theatre, dinner and various events. I took her to the Lanesborough Hotel for afternoon tea, as a Christmas present one year. For her birthday the year before last I got tickets for us to visit Buckingham Palace and then met Dave, James and Rachel for Sausages and Mash in a restaurant that James knew in Soho. But the thing she talked about today was in 2003 Dave and I took her to the Hampton Court flower show, for lunch we booked a table and had a bottle of champagne.
I don't think we would have sat with her today and reminisced about the jumper we bought her for Christmas 2003 or the slippers she had for her birthday 2004. Little did I know when I put so much thought into those trips that they would mean so much now.

We had just arrived home today when Rachel phoned to say she was just about to go and visit Mum and would be calling in to see us and could she have lunch. The weekend is nearly over and we didn't get half the things done that we had hoped, our garden needs tidying and I've still not finished clearing up my room but there's always another day! But Alec's prints are on the wall and very nice they look!