Yesterday, after the front lawns had been cut, I had just settled down to start to watch 'Paddington' for the umpteenth time when I noticed that one of my nieces in Yorkshire had tried to phone me in the morning so I decided to return her call. What ensued was a telephone conversation which went on for an hour whilst we discussed lots of family matters but particularly the state of Meg's declining health. I know that my niece would dearly like to pay us a visit but we are separated by a difficult cross-country journey of about 160 miles and she (and her husband) have their own health concerns in any case. We discussed a lot of matters in very great depth and i know that she is constantly thinking about our situation and she assured me of her constant love and support. We discussed various matters which I had also chewed over with our University of Birmingham friend yesterday and whilst my niece is generally appraised of what is going in in our lives via this blog, there are evidently lots of details which it would not be appropriate to reveal. It is always reassuring to know that there are family members who are available and to whom one can turn in moments of distress and/or despair but we are not at that point yet. On the subject of family matters, my son and his wife were due to come over later in the day to help to do some gardening and, given this is the rapidly growing season, this is also much appreciated. After we had moved to Leicestershire in 1971, Meg and I and our son moved to a beautiful 1920's built detached house where the owner had regenerated all of the house's important domestic systems such as electrical rewiring and plumbing but what he had not had time to do was the garden, apart from an evident cutting of the back lawn. Now what greeted us once we asked to see the garden was a formal back garden, then an orchard and then a vegetable plot at least 50 yards in length. This had been neglected during the illness of the two previous owners and we were faced with a plot where the weeds were between 4'-5' in height. But my son and I turned it around by cutting down the jungle of weed and gradually digging it over. Even at a young age, my son was a good little digger and he earned money at the rate of about 2s6d (12.5p) an hour which he utilised to buy Hornby track and locomotives for his model railway we had laid out in a back bedroom. At a later age, my son graduated onto 'real' trains, and this has been an enduring life interest and, as a hobby, he both part owns and drives Class 50 diesel locomotives on the neighbouring Severn valley railway. In fact, his joint interest in photography and these locomotives resulted in him being commissioned to write an illustrated history of these locomotives which adorns my bookshelves to this day. At some point in the next few days, we are expecting a visit from the Palliative Care team who will call around to make an assessment of Meg's needs but the intervening Bank Holiday (May 1st being a national holiday in most countries but not the UK) makes life arkward. Without wishing to sound too curmudgeonly, Bank Holidays just represent a departure from normal routines and are not particularly appreciated. For example, the birthday card which I have written for a friend in Oxfordshire has not yet been posted as it will only sit around for about 4 days before the post box is actually emptied (Friday until Tuesday).
My son and daughter-in-law called around this morning and I was very pleased to see them both. We spent quite a lot of time discussing family matters and how we were going to navigate the days and weeks ahead in view of Meg's condition. Afterwards, they set to work pruning the laurel hedge which surrounds our BioDisk. This job is now so large, it is going to have to be done in two tranches. I used a miniature syringe that the District Nurses had supplied in the past to get a few drops of water inside Meg's mouth but any lunch was clearly beyond her. The sun started to shine brightly so I thought I seize the opportunity to get the back lawn cut. I left a note for the nurses hanging out of our letter box and I had just complete my mowing when they turned up and read the note. We conveyed Meg to her downstairs bedroom where the District Nurse applied a dressing to the new pressure sore and then we collectively decided to leave her in bed to minimise any further handling, which is proving increasingly painful. I requested the nurses that they make a further request of the Palliative Care team to come to assess Meg's needs and they said they would when they returned to the office. When the Bank Holiday is over, I hope the Palliative Care can swing into action. We are in the scenario now where myself, the carers and the District Nurses are doing what we can to avoid unnecessary handling to minimise the amount of pain that Meg may be experiencing.
The media has been dominated by military parades and aircraft fly past to celebrate VE Day (Victory in Europe) day. The exact anniversary is on Thursday, May 8th but there are four days of celebrations planned, starting today and utilising, no doubt, the May spring bank holiday. It is now 80 years since the end of the war in Europe and there are just a sprinkling of veterans left who served in the second World War and in ten years time (then 90th celebrations) there might not be any. A lot of focus is on the celebrations and street parties at the time, and it now well known that the young Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret crept out from Buckingham Palace under a cloak of anonymity in order to participate in and to enjoy the universal celebrations that were going on around them. I think the government has relaxed the licensing legislation so that people may enjoy an extended evening of drinking on Thursday evening, as well.
© Mike Hart [2025]