We are still in a state of flux in caring for my mother-in-law. As we see signs of her grumpiness returning we know she is getting better; and yet we know she’s still fragile despite her “I’m perfectly alright” stance. Meanwhile we are trying to create a feeling of homeliness with painting, cleaning and even more cleaning.
Rachel has concocted a lethal cleaning mixture and is zapping almost anything. Contained in a spray bottle is a mixture of sugar soap, miscellaneous bleaches and bathroom cleaners together with, for good measure, a slug of 1976 Ginger wine which will finish anything off in an instant. Or perhaps it’ll take off any paint, tile glaze or bomb proof finish off without mercy. Now she’s armed with this and heading upstairs, I’m steering well clear and settling down to write my blog.
As you can see from the above photo, our sitting room is coming together, though far from finished. We still have a little tidying up of wall paper to do. I have decided to give one wall a third (yes a THIRD) coat of emulsion to get a perfect finish. The skirting board needs painting, the floor boards need further cleaning and polishing and we have our electrician friend Val coming to fix a new light onto the ceiling.
We are chuffed with the floor boards; a good and unexpected find under the vintage acrylic carpet(!). They have been swept, gaps hoovered and I’ve started to clean the decades of dirt ground into the grain. Perhaps a good polish will finish it off nicely when we get to that stage. In the meantime I notice a few blemishes and conclude these add to the charm and remind myself it’s not right to be too perfect in such an old property. There is a slight depression in the boards as you step into the room. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s just a sign of thousands of feet coming into the room over the centuries – this is quite a thought and I wonder how many more generations will continue adding their mark.
You might think we are sorted. Far from it. Some of the material things are in the pipeline. Next Saturday we are having Virgin install broadband and a telephone. Also their TV service which will be a new venture for us. Speaking of which we went to John Lewis yesterday and bought a television having been bamboozled by a over enthusiastic Samsung representative who wouldn’t stop talking and was hardly in a position to give us the usual John Lewis well considered advice. I now feel a stroppy letter to Mr Lewis coming on.
We have also succeeded in sourcing a new oven and a hob for the kitchen to bring an eclectic mixture of odd appliances to the equally eccentric kitchen, though functional, on a good day.
During the sitting room makeover, we had Becky and David help in the early stages. They were keen to know how to wallpaper and I took great delight in passing the dark art down to them, just as my own father had initiated me in the importance of plumb lines, proper pasting tables and brushes and the need to take your time. I feel as if I can tick another box in my daughter’s training for life which has become a little fragmented as the changing a car wheel lesson was never fully signed off until I provided instructions by phone while they were stranded with a flat tyre one day.
Grandma is, we think, probably spitting feathers as we introduce a series of carers who are determined to perform strip washes and delicate skin care, as well as engage in endless chattiness. When it comes to dealing with this, her modus operandi is to say she’s confused, turn the radio volume right up and promptly fall asleep. We think she is understandably unsettled by us moving in and turning things upside down, bringing change to the house which has remained almost untouched for so many years. She has never been one to welcome any change and has resisted anything; therefore this must be unnerving to say the least. And yet, we feel sure it must be done as we are in Safeguarding territory these days.
We still find ourselves liaising with providers of different kinds of care, house maintenance issues, the Doctor, the Social Worker and at the back of our minds is our own house and what we should do with it, if anything at all.
Through all of this I see Rachel juggling so many things in her mind and she never seems to stop. Even when we have a quiet spot late in the evening, far from relaxing her mind is grappling with the next challenge to come along. Whether it’s the intricacies of Power of Attorney, internet home deliveries or what is next for attention in the garden; the list goes on. Behind this I see a beautiful woman with immense inner beauty and wisdom. As her husband, I hope I can still provide that husbandly steer as we navigate these new waters together.
So this update has been about our progress from our own home to setting up a new home and the quest for a sense of homeliness and the feeling of be settled; this is important to us along with seeking to do the right thing. While my little blogging corner is coming together, we have so much more to do; in a month Hannah will be returning from her summer on the south coast and we need to accommodate her and her wetsuits, windsurf gear, all kinds of other outdoorsy stuff create a young person’s environment in a corner of the house.
We certainly have our work cut out…..
