Yesterday being Christmas Day, we were still due our full package of four carer visits for the day but instead of the normal starting call of 8.00am this had been retimed to 7.00am which seems very early for us. But there was an organisational reason for this as the care agency had tried to arrange its packages of care in such a way that the Christmas duties were spread around the staff and their work organised into 'windows' so that it did not impact too adversely on Christmas activities with their own families. All of this I perfectly understood but was not sorry when the workers arrived (complete with Miggles, the cat of course) about ten minutes late. There is always a certain amount of running around to do and preparations before the carers arrive so I was not sorry for them being late today. Making conversations with the two care workers this morning, I am not sure how we arrived at the topic of my connections with the world of popular culture but I did recount a story from my youth. As a part time job whilst I was a student at Manchester University, I was employed as a barman in a nightclub called 'Tiffanys' which was part of the Mecca group. The two girl singers in the resident band we always thought were rather good, as indeed they were, because a few years later they detached themselves and formed the female part of a band called 'The New Seekers'. This band achieved some fame by coming second in the Eurovision Song Contest and even the story here is quite interesting. The band recorded 'I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing' in 1971 and it became an enormous hit selling 12 million copies. The success of the song led to the band representing the UK at the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. Monaco could not afford to host the competition after victory in 1971. The song was eventually adopted by Coca Cola with the lyrics 'I'd like to buy the World a Coke' and became exceptionally well known and embedded in popular culture. But the lead singer, Eve Graham, has always maintained that the band were completely ripped off by Coca Cola and never received the royalties that they truly deserved. Having explained all of this to the carers, I thought that one of them with several boys ranging in age from 5 to 15 could say that she cared for a person whose husband once knew and worked with singers who became 'The New Seekers' The morning followed a predictable Christmas morning pattern with present opening following our normal style breakfast. We then entertained ourselves with repeats of some of the Christmastime animated cartoon, including some Wallace and Gromit. Incidentally, for those of you who assiduously follow all of the credits following these films, I am particularly to be credited as an assistant puppet maker for the animated cartoon 'A Good Day Out' and wealso watched the last few minutes of 'The Snowman' followed by 'Mog's Christmas'. These had just nicely finished when it was time for two of the younger carers to call around for Meg's lunchtime call. Being Christmas, I gave them each a (very) small drink of a Pellegrino orange flavoured spring water topped up by a little Prosecco and Meg and I actually drank the same combination as well. Christmas lunch followed fairly swiftly because I had cooked our beef in the slow cooker the night before ad prepped some of the vegetables, Then I parboiled the sprouts and carrots and finished them by roasting in the oven, complementing the sprouts with a little bag of chestnuts and finishing off with some Yorkshire pudding. After lunch, we watched the closing stages of 'Swan Lake' and eventually turned our attention to the sequel to the Railway Children which I could only watch sporadically because I was busy doing the washing up after lunch (which was not too stressful I am pleased to say) Our carer for the afternoon came along bearing an afternoon gift of some Lindt chocolates which was very thoughtful of him. In many ways, I think that Christmas Day has to be carefully managed as none of the normal rules of living living apply.
The end of the day did not end particularly well for either of us. The schedule for Christmas Day said that the 'putting to bed' carer was to be single handed and this particular carer, whilst her heart is in the right place, is inclined to rush and bustle to get the job done which does not bode well. The originally scheduled time was 7.20pm but this was changed at the last moment to 7.00pm but the carer turned up 10 minutes early because she wanted to leave early. Now it is fairly crucial that the workers turn out up at the appointed time and not too early as there are various routines (such as giving Meg her pills the right time before bedtime, the washing materials to be put in place, my bed to be made up) and so on. So Meg was particularly grumpy and truculent in the hands of the carer and I was obliged to use much gentler and more coaxing methods to get Meg to cooperate in getting her undressed and ready for bed. In addition, of course, I had to act as the second carer and our day had already started an hour earlier this morning than it should. So all in all, it was not a very happy end to the day and rather put a dampner on what should have been a happy and relaxing day. On some ways Boxing Day is a more normal day even though part of the holiday season and does not have the same emotional pull as Christmas Day itself. The big department stores used to start their Boxing Day sales on Boxing Day itself and, no doubt, many still do but the patterns of the retail trade are changing fast before our very eyes.
© Mike Hart [2024]