This is a serious rant.......

My wonderful husband suffered severe stroke on 11th January 2014, leaving him almost totally disabled in mind and body. His life was brought to an end at 4.20pm on 1st January 2015 by something, so far, unnamed, making that almost a year with no quality of life and nothing that anyone could do about it. Since then he has been in the care of the funeral home who have a funeral arranged for next Monday and who have been a great support to us, the family. However, due to the circumstances of the death (no doctor present (although an 'on-call' doctor had attended earlier that day), no obvious cause), documentation has to be obtained from the coroner and a death certificate issued before anything can move forward so we are now in a situation where there is a very strong possibility of the funeral being postponed.

Now, I know that in everyday life we all face, or have faced, these annoying frustrations and, at the end of the day, things work out one way ot the other. But, for us, this goes beyond the pale. It is a final indignity. And, from what we can work out, it is caused by the incompetence, inconsideration and total lack of care by someone who should know better.

But what gets to me more than anything else is the unfairness of it all.  A man who spent his life being happy, kind, hardworking, generous, loving and all good things (you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't like him, I think) is having to end his story in this way. Unforgiveable.

I'm back with all of those negative emotions: anger, fear, injustice, despair. Sleep's gone again leaving me tired and shaky, and that cold knot of something is inside me all the time.  I've managed to stay reasonably strong for a year, with lots of wobbles along the way, but now, just as we all thought we could move into a new year with our good memories to sustain us, we have this shit to deal with.

Thank God for family and true friends.

What other people think

“It's so egotistical to believe that we know more about someone else's reality than they do, and such a waste of time.” - Shreve Stockton

 I just can't string the right words together for this post without tying my brain in knots and coming up with something that just doesn't make sense. All I can say is that unless people have some magic way of completely infiltrating your psyche and are experiencing your situation, then they have no right to judge or criticise the way you act within that situation. Coping with grief over an extended period of time brings with it so many negative emotions and having even just one or two disapproving looks over something you say can add to the huge burden of guilt that is just one of them. As of this week I can honestly say that, as long as I'm satisfied that what I'm doing is right for me, I am no longer bothered by what people think. A lesson painfully learned.

That is all. 

So it ever was.......

This is a post that I did in December 2005, probably in response to other blogs that were doing something similar.  Those lists are still valid; maybe a few minor changes in most of them. But the 'Seven things that attract me to my spouse/partner' are 100% spot on and accurately describe his very being. I have been truly blessed.

Trying to control photo overload

Hell is paved with good intentions - Samuel Johnson
Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too - Aldous Huxley

You've seen them, haven't you? Those posts on social media where people commit to doing something at very regular intervals for specified, or even unspecified periods of time. Daily positives, daily photos, giving up alcohol, cigarettes, etc. You know what I mean.

I try a lot of these things at some time or other and, at that time, I fully intend that I will do it. But, then, it gets to the end of the day and I've forgotten; or I can't think of anything to post (found that one hard in the 'daily positives' categorey.  Some of the days I've had in this past year it's been difficult to find anything positive. My lovely Jo managed it, though, and I found that in itself one of  the most positive thing to keep me going, along with the love and support of the rest of my wonderful family).

Well, blogging has also been something that I've revisited many times and always my first post indicates that I will attempt to make it a regular thing. Never happens. At the beginning, when I first started, I kept at it for a long, long time and even made good, loyal friends who have remained so to this day. And, reading some of them now, they weren't half bad; some of them I've impressed myself with! But, because I'm not someone who can dash off stuff without constant editing, researching (Wikipedia and dictionaries are my friends), it was taking hours out of my day and, sometimes, replaced essential things like preparing food, tidying up a bit and confining myself to a small room hunched over a computer (before the days of laptops, at least, my laptop).

So, here we are again. I've been overloading Facebook in the past few days with photographs and I've decided that a better way to do it is put them here, not all at once (there are many!), but regularly and then post a link on Facebook so that people can look if they want but don't feel that they are obliged to 'like' or comment.

First one is this:

Christmas 199?? David has just opened his gift of a bottle of whiskey and the look on his face is reflecting what he's thinking: Thank God! Now I can deal with that old bat on my right!, the old bat being my mother who was, what shall we say, not exactly full of Christmas cheer. Not full of any cheer at all :-)

That's it then, for today.  Have now got to go and get dressed. xxx

New year, new chapter, new way of life - dealing with it, 1st step

I'm a bit out of practice with this blogging lark, so please bear with.

The purpose is take control of my brain again and stop the whirl of random thoughts that are constantly there and make me think, sometime, that I'm going completely barmy.  Trouble is, they're there one minute and gone the next! But....they keep coming back.

So here's the first one.  I have a strong tendency to worry about what other people think.  The way that I've coped with my life this past year with my wonderful husband, a strong, funny, sensitive, lovely man with not a bad bone in his body felled in one blow by a massive stroke that took away every quality of life that you can think of in a nursing home for an indefinite period, was by trying to live it as I've always lived it when he was around.

Facebook has played a huge role in this but with a mixture of  'FB Friends' consisting of real life friends, family, people you don't know very well and, sometimes, people you don't know at all I was very concious of what I was posting.  If I posted something funny rude would those that knew think I was callous, uncaring, inappropriate, offensive? I did it anyway, although there were often things that I chickened out of, but I worried about it so those negative niggles in my head would turn nasty and I'd imagine all sorts things without anything whatsoever to back up those imaginings.

So there, it's written down, on the internet, therefore the whole world can see it in black and white, if they're interested.  And it's so silly. I can see that if some people thought it inappropriate, etc then so what? What would happen? Maybe I'd lose 1 or 2 'followers', but I've not noticed any difference.

The whole point is I feel better for it. And that's not a wrong thing to want. Nothing on earth could change the situation with David and I didn't love him any less. And I just know (because I knew him so well)........that he would't have minded at all.  In fact, that last sentence has led me on to the final paragraph......

I've been thinking all day about putting this on Facebook but have held back, for some reason.  Yesterday we were at the Funeral Directors when the very nice lady we were talking to had to leave us for a minute and we started talking about suitable music. Pete started off by suggesting perhaps something by Sinatra and a couple of other things but then I said that I really wanted to emphasise David's sense of humour and mentioned that he'd really liked Peter Cook & Dudley Moore so how about them singing 'Goodbye' as we were leaving, maybe. Then Jo said something about a TV sitcom where the family wanted the Theme from Bodyguard (I Will Always Love You) but ended up with the title song from Minder (Dennis Waterman singing I could Be So Good For You). There followed a not-very-serious discussion about this accompanied by quite a lot of fairly loud  laughter.  Inappropriate? No - in my head I could hear David laughing along with us and I remembered an equal amount of laughing whilst arranging his brother's funeral.  So, goodness knows what we'll end up with but it will be with my wonderful husband  and Pete's and Jo's Dad uppermost in our minds. What other people think doesn't matter a fuck.

Thanks for reading. (If you do)

Crisis of Confidence

A lion doesn’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep.    Unknown

I've been sitting here for about an hour not knowing how to start this, what subject to talk about, worrying that my readers, if I have any, will be bored rigid.  But I'm fed up, suffering from a stinky 'flu-like cold and can't sleep so I'm going to ramble.  Nothing unusual there, then.

I last dipped my toe into the vast ocean of Bloggerland in January 2012 (3 fairly boring posts) and before that my final offering was 2009.  So, as you may have gathered, my outpourings haven't been too prolific.  But, due to a chance remark by the lovely Jo, I've been remembering how I used to enjoy sounding off about various subjects and benefitting from the friendship of people met via this blog.  So, if I bore you, well, tough - come back again another day when I possibly may be more interesting!

Worrying about what other people think has always been a bit of a problem for me in some respects but in the last year or so it hasn't really bothered me at all although, of course, I wouldn't like to come across as being offensive or ill-mannered.  But as to my opinions, the way I look/dress and generally behave that is very much down to me to manage as I think fit.

Influenced by a recent TV documentary about 6 women with an average age of 80, who are determined to look fabulous, have fun and redefine old age, my 'style' is going to remain up-to-date and, maybe, now and again, a bit 'different' and my hair is still going to change colour at regular intervals.  I'm very happy to accept all the compliments that come my way (and they do!) and I'll totally ignore any smirks, rude remarks, nudges & winks.

Watch this space!

Happy Days

Super duper day today despite miserable rainy weather. Cinema this afternoon to see 'The Artist', excellent film though it took a short while to get going but then got better and better.

After that picked up a good pair of walking shoes at a bargain price so must now take inspiration from Jo and fit more long walks into my days!

Then it was home to lasagne, recipe taken from Slimming World website.

Next was a bit of telly and now in bed with a bit more telly, my iPod and my Kindle. Will try to add sleep to my choices a bit later.

Lovely.

Success on a plate

“Childhood is that wonderful time of life when all you need to do to lose weight is take a bath.” - Richard Zera

 

Well, yippee!! After a great day out (more to follow), it was time for the Wonderful Slimming World Thursday Group Get-together.  And I'd achieved what I set out to do last week, a stone (14lbs) lost since the end of October, which is roughly 12 weeks.  With Easter being about 12 weeks away, this has now inspired me to set another goal and aim to lose a similar amount by then, which will take me almost to my final goal.

 

Slow but sure, that's my weight-loss journey and I think that I don't want it any other way.  My observations, for what they're worth, over the years have been that your body, for all manner of reasons, will lose body fat and weight at its own pace and it helps no end if you can accept smaller losses and not get too disappointed with any non-movement or small gains.  Unless, of course, you've stuffed yourself with chocolate, cakes and biscuits all week. Then, frankly, you should know what to expect, be happy that you made that choice and carry on from there.  

 

Of course, it's not always easy to remain upbeat, especially if the weight hasn't shifted much for 2 or 3 weeks but we have a fantastic group leader in Karen who's always there for advice and support in person at the group get-togethers or by phone/email.

 

Ok - lecture over - now on to other things - a summary of my week.  On second thoughts, perhaps not - don't want you to nod off so a couple of odds and ends.

 

Having decided that my lack of exercise was not good for me in any way, shape or form and not wanting to use the wii with my husband as an audience, walking was my preferred choice so I gave myself a good talking to and said: 'Don't be stupid! of course you can fit it in.  You can do what you like!'  And it worked!

 

This week: 

To Addlestone and back for my Sunday stint at Age UK

A super, familiar walk around Virginia Water Lake 

A very-near-to-home discovery - Homewood Park

And yesterday was a short visit to Hampton Court, lunch in the Member's Room (deeelicious thanks to Jo:-)), followed by an hour and half around Bushy Park 

 

Deer, deer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diana Fountain

Lunch, by the way, was a couple of slices of quiche, Slimming World style!