End of the dark days

 When Steve and I left the house at 6.15am this week for our thrice weekly early morning swim sessions, there was just the tiniest hint of pre-dawn light edging into the sky to the east. 'So what', you might be thinking. Well, it made me smile, and the reason for that is, that a find the long dark nights and the short days of mid winter very trying. Much as I do try not to wish my life away, considering that time starts to pass very quickly as one grows older anyway, but I find the winter hard and miserable and never ending. This is why I love our winter holiday in St Moritz where the tourist office claim that they have well over three hundred days of sunshine per year, as opposed to the storm after storm, after storm that we have suffered in the UK. Imogen, being the last named storm at this stage and that made her, (Little Madam) number nine.

I wrote this light hearted piece sitting by a sunny window looking out toward the mountains in the Engadin Valley in Switzerland.

The Shortest Day 

The shortest day

I have to say

Pleases me

Because you see

Dark is still here

But it is with sheer

Delight to me to know

Short days will slowly go

One by one they’ll fade

To long winter, put paid

The long journey of the sun

Is now over and done

The solar ticket is paid

Return not to be delayed

For very much longer

My heart already stronger

My spirit lifted high

My relief heard in a sigh

Wicked winter half way gone

Spring will soon be upon

Us all with flowers bright

But more importantly,

With LIGHT!

 

Recent travels

Recently I have gone along with my husband Steve on some work trips again. I used to nearly always go with him both to help out and for company on long trips. That came to a halt during the last few years of Steve's mum's slow downward spiral when I stayed home to be her prime carer until her death in December 2014. There was a lot to take care of after her death due to the fact that she had kept every birthday and Christmas card, every invoice from every store she ever telephone shopped at since the flood. Going through a departed persons belongings is not something that can be done quickly. It has to be done carefully just in case there is something important in amongst all the papers that have been tied in bundles, carefully wrapped, placed in an outer bag and tied again. Most of it does get burned as its sorted. Bank statements going back to wartime and all sorts of useless documents. Letters sent and received. EVERY letter ever received. Some charming loving letters from wartime and a few sweet letters from her nephew Michael when he was at boarding school, writing to ask his aunt and uncle to send him some sweeties. Every photo ever taken. You would not believe how tightly and cleverly all these items can be hidden away.
Even though I am the daughter-in-law, it is still an emotional job and after plodding away at it for a month or so, I had to slow it down to a measured amount a week so that I could return to some sort of life of my own. It is now fourteen months since Caroline Mary Belt died at the age of 94. I have nowhere near completed sorting out her papers that were so tightly stored away. Now, I just take a handful out every few weeks and hope to eventually get to the end.
Even though we were not always on the most friendly terms, I was for sure the one she would call when she felt unwell or when something private needed doing. I may not have been her number one loved one, but I know for sure that I was her most trusted and dependable choice of person. Still after all this time I find myself close to tears writing about all this. One can only do ones best and plod on day after day through whatever life throws at you.

So now and again I can now drop everything and join Steve on a work trip because I do not have to make any complicated arrangements to leave home any more. I am more or less free again, to be my own person and a wife/companion once more.

Last week our work travels took us from our business premises and off through the channel tunnel in one of our work vehicles. Karlsruhe in Germany and on to Markdorf close to the border with Switzerland for deliveries. It was Fasching in Germany so that was quite fun to see all the people dressed up in a variety of costumes for the traditional pre-lent fling and I would say more than a little over indulgence.

From Markdorf we drove back into the Black Forrest for our second overnight stop near Hinterzarten.

Thick snow fell during that afternoon and into the night to leave a foot of snow. Thankfully the road for cleared for us to start our journey the next day. The one place we had to pick up goods was a scrap metal yard in the flea market of Saint Ouen in Paris, very close to where the recent terrorist shoot out was that was the main news item a few weeks before. The last delivery due to an unexpected change of plan had us driving back toward and a little beyond Bordeux before we were finally able to head along the long road home.

 

To make the journey pass quickly we take several audio books with us and that is a help and a half with the endless motorway miles. My husband and I are best friends as well as husband and wife and love to be together and so the work trips are improved with the company of one to another, sharing a coffee, a meal or an overnight stop. We both love to travel together and are both Cartophiles which is a name we use to describe people who, like us, love maps.

Yes, it is nice to get home again and sleep in our own bed, but we both enjoy travelling even when it involves work.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nature study today

Rose

 

When the time comes to trim the climbing rose

One see’s her other face,

The strength behind the delicate flower;

Delicate my eye! 

The straggly little root that was planted

Deceived big time.

One year later pretty rose fulfils her promise

Of fragile beauty,

As like an alien invader her roots grow strong

Under the earth. 

She takes hold, takes nourishment, digs deep her base

As we turn a blind eye.

The second spring see’s her spectacular growth

A proper little madam

Lapping up admiration for her youthful beauty

Budding precociously

Bursting into flamboyant flower in every direction

Rose shows her best side. 

One can only marvel at her grace and elegant style

Once seen, you’re lost

Musing as to how something so fragile and delicate

Has such force.

Rose bewitches all who pass by her, her perfume

It fills the air,

Her heavy hypnotic, seductive fragrance envelopes

We submit joyfully.

Try to pass her by without stopping to compliment

And Rose will clasp you back.

She spreads her limbs, demanding total domination

Throughout summer.

Then, as the air grows cooler and the days shorten

Her radiance fades.

Her adoring public suffer too as Rose sheds her leaves

Come summers end.

 

She will fight with the last of her power to stay strong

Against the secateurs;

Grasping, clawing, as offending pruning surgery comes

To her last season gasps

Sweet Rose gone now, as she cruelly draws first blood

Rose Virago will fight again.

Carer

Care, Carer, Caring, Cared

Recently a friend asked me how I had coped during the twenty four years of living in the same house as my now departed, Mother in Law. All I can truthfully say is that I did just about cope, barely. It was only the last few years that got difficult, and then a couple of years that got progressively more difficult to the point in the last eighteen months, that it was very close indeed, to unbearable. The person enquiring was newly placed in the position of taking care of a close relative after the death of their marital partner and this only brought about then, because the surviving parent had then suffered a stroke, making them completely dependant on a ‘From this day onward’ basis.

A family has to make their own choice as to whether they will continue to look after their elderly relatives themselves or  firmly, and maybe wisely, stand back a step and support them as they are taken into a home. It seems the sensible thing to do when you have a very busy professional life yourself, because let there be no doubt, it is a life changing commitment taking on that carer role yourself.

When you watch the parent going into a home for the elderly, you can be assured that they will be correctly cared for, with all the daily needs attended to. They will be given regular meals, washed, waited on and medically overseen professionally. They will get everything they need, everything that is, except love. They will get kindness, but not love.

My own mother came to stay with us for a couple of months after my father died but quite quickly wanted to get back to her own home, even though we had made it clear that she was welcome. Being an outspoken person, she said that she didn’t like our meal times, she didn’t like our food; it was too fancy and we didn’t cook the vegetables how she liked them. We went to bed too early and we got up far too early. She missed her sisters in her home town of Worthing and her friends and neighbours. She did not feel comfortable and wanted to go home.

She was not a well woman, but could still walk on her own and straight as a poker at that. There was no arguing with my mum, she stood straight and she spoke straighter. After settling her back in her house, she told me that it would be enough if I went over to check on her and do her shopping, pick up washing and any jobs that she could not manage, just a couple of times a week. Of course it was a bit harder for me, even though she only lived eight miles away, because of the time going back an forth but it worked reasonably well until she was taken in to hospital with renal failure toward the end. In my opinion, she helped that to progress, by not drinking any where near enough, because then, she would have another trip to the toilet. That was her story anyway, and a lot of old people fall foul with that problem, due to cutting down on trips to the loo. The painful truth was she would be happy to see her husband, my dear old dad, again as soon as possible.  She survived him by just eighteen months.

What ever you try to do, it will still be painful and nothing will run smooth. All I can say is that I cared as best I could for our elderly family members. Having had, it’s true, a very unpleasant time of it as their health went slowly down hill.

 It became a full time effort just keeping up with soiled washing and the mess of accidents on the way to the bathroom, that are, without doubt, so humiliating for the poor soul suffering them, without them feeling doubly horrible because somebody has to deal with it. It is quite shocking and at those times you do sometimes wish you had taken the nursing home option, and then feel mean because you even thought that.

However;  a year and a bit after my mother in law died at the age of ninety four, after a quite short stay in hospital. I am beginning to feel better and I am getting over the guilt I suffered for a while because I felt that I was not always as patient as I could have been. What I know now is, that I did my best beyond what was my ‘Duty’ if you like, and gave my time and I gave her companionship and love.

Caring for an elderly relative should not be taken on lightly. It takes courage and patience and a big block out of your life. We must all make our own decision bearing in mind how it affects the rest of the family.

The following poem was written during the last six months of caring for my mother in law. I don’t think it shows me in a flattering light, but it does show the degree of stress I felt. I do thank our cousin Sally, who would come to visit and chat with her aunt, whilst I had a couple of hour’s peace, generally taken in the grounds and gardens of Arundel Castle a few miles away from home, scribbling in my note book and enjoying the quiet and beauty of the surroundings. 

Going Dark 

If one is not a natural nurse type

Then it can get hard.

It can get very wearing.

It can get to the point where,

 It is almost impossible,

For the one who sadly, feels stuck

In a situation forced upon them.

Who feels, rightly or wrongly,

And I doubt that it is wrong,

That their own life

Is constantly,

Day by day being pressed

Closer and closer into a hold pattern;

The press ganged carer.

And without even the King’s shilling!

There is no reward,

Only an exceptionally high cost.

Unpaid forced into service.

Staff,

For that is what they have become,

Will feel unavoidably resentful.

The resentful feeling will increase

Exponentially.

Out of control.

They are trying desperately

To hold on to a life of their own

But are being made

to feel guilty for that.

Constantly made to feel

That they are wrong.

Wrong for trying not to be

Totally trampled underfoot.

Anything that is done

Simply for needs of their own,

Is held up for examination,

As if, they are the selfish one.

When the compulsory carer

Needs to take a break,

It is treated as though

It is an unforgivable sin

To the invalid, and by the invalid.

The only way

To make the one who is cared for

Totally happy is

Is to completely submit to their will

Thereby giving up any hope

Of maintaining an independent life

Giving up any intention

Of keeping a free will. 

For this reason it is essential

That regular breaks be taken

Complete breaks.

Totally out of contact breaks.

‘Going Dark’

As the crime writers put it.

And for long enough amounts of time

For the dictator invalid

To get the message.

Though that will not happen.

The message also needs to be

Accepted as necessary

By the press ganged carer,

Without any feelings of guilt.

Mmm! That won’t happen either.

Spirit, Heart and Strength of Will

Spirit, Heart and Strength of Will

Versus Logic, Caution and Common sense 

Common sense means what to you?

Carefully weighing up what to do

Playing life safe and not making waves

How the practical person behaves

Wishing and hoping and carefully saves

Or clawing out of our respective caves

Searching inside for our spirit’s aim

Not settling for a life so ordered and tame 

An every day schedule from nine to five

Sinking into the shadow or coming alive

Grasping the nettle and feeling the sting

Take heart to search for a road with some zing

Striving with real effort at everything

Teeth gritting for a better tomorrow to bring

That little pump working as hard as it can

Not to end back exactly where you began 

Summoning up deepest strength of will  

To start again each day is too bitter a pill

Never believe that you cannot do better

Following the safe school word to the letter

From fear of becoming a loaded debtor

Struggle and work to be a go getter

Speak loud enough to be audible

Performing to a standard more laudable 

Proceed with caution but not with fear

Keep the principles you hold most dear

Never stop when the going gets tough

Push on relentlessly as the path gets rough

Dig deep when you stand at the edge of a bluff

When as hard as you try it’s never enough

Live goes on well past that first high peak

Your own strength built to the goal you seek

The Bells

Tinnitus 

It’s like it’s not true

Because whatever you say or do

Nobody else can hear

This endless, relentless din

Can’t turn it off or down, can’t win

Only I, am here to hear

The cruelty of the level

Of ringing noise from the devil

Me alone to bear and hear

It seems that nothing can be done

My invisible torturer seems to have won

Everlasting, on my own I hear

Even my husband, gentle as a foal

Hasn’t a clue how it plagues my soul

S’a miracle I can hear over what I hear

There isn’t any actual pain

A constant irritant will still remain

In here,

So near

Sheer noise

I hear

Arun and the Shingle Banks

This is my own personal slightly mad theory about the wicked intentions of the spirit of the River Arun in Littlehampton where it meets the sea. The river has been diverted umpteen times over a very long period of time, centuries actually. The most outrageous of these, seems to have been to have the river past in front of Arundel Castle at the whim of an earlier Duke of Norfolk. I stress that that is just, as I see it, and only delving into records would prove or disprove this idea worrying, pecking, itching in my fanciful brain.

A few years ago, after a prolonged series of winter storms, a new shingle bank appeared just a little way off the beach just about half a mile east of the point where the river meets the sea. Later on several lesser shingle banks have arrived at points in the direction of Worthing further to the east.
These banks are now well settled. They are very interesting to explore and at low tide on a nice day are much fun to dog walkers and kiddies. The banks seem to disappear from sight almost entirely at full tide. There is this wrap around effect that I very much enjoy watching when you study the incoming tide on a rough day. The water swells up and passes either side of this ever growing barrier, first from the west and then from the east before crashing down on the beach. To my mind, the  water seems to be ending further and further up the beach towards the promenade and Sea Road beyond.

Well, there you have it, the latest ramblings of an imaginative old bat. The poem on the subject written some time ago follows here.

Coming of Rage 

The River Arun has long been prone to flooding

Thru past centuries Arun fought against being fought

Unruly child of nature; a vandal in the budding

Long since held his own reins sending spurs clubbing

A whole history of lords and dukes who thought

They could bring him to heel though gain was naught 

The same head banging mistaken work repeated

Diverting the course wrought by flow now defeated

A rivers irritating curves gentleman farmers cut

To suit whim and pocket trimmed where banks jut

Each submission with arrogant air was greeted

The rich men lodging in homes next to the river abut 

Brought down to the sea by a more convenient route

Every spiteful cut, a simple line, flow now money serves

The powerful gloat and at nature cock a snoot

Greed becomes a spiteful, fearless, insatiable brute

The graceful snaking river slakes off luscious curves

Turned into an obedient, servile service chute 

Now again rebellion rises when abuse becomes too cruel

Resentment starts to boil within the independent heart

Distant memory of past times of original current own rule

So summon up medieval skills formed inside dark art

The temporarily tamed spirit calmed from centuries school 

Longs to return to follow it’s since hidden ancient chart  

Enough of changed direction and industrial domination

Slow returning to his one time impetuous youthful rage

Call upon the eddies and undercurrent tools to swage

Recalling from swirling rapids clutch where he came of age

Tear free from what they made by force an ignorant mutation

Deepest anger simmering slowly through violent gestation 

So many natural curves hacked away who can answer why

Greatham Bridge, Houghton, Offham, Burpham, to Arundel haven

Piers built at the mouth to snap the great sand bar once so high

The tidal water separated so from the sea cut that sea river array

Lashed away from it know pattern spitefully and deliberately graven

Twitching riffles deep power surges form the roiling rivers cry 

Biding time to turn back the clock drifting into new age silting

Work the currents strength and mesh into elaborate quilting

Empowering the undercurrent long enslaved and wilting

Rebuild the shingle bar piece by piece to reform old ways

Rise up into the light old glory days again to praise

Patience of centuries cast of like old reptile skin flays 

Then shall the River Arun at long last from servitude rise

To greedily reclaim all the his stolen canals and ditches

Where once he gracefully flowed now to flooding he switches

Again to create his own artistic work and sing his own reprise

Without warning stealthily usurps his old wealth, his prize

Useless resistance swept away like gnat bite twitches 

Only then shall the River Arun once more make peace

Where once a regal river did glide tranquilly the valley through

Will be the calm waters of Lake Arun thus anguish release

Gratefully in freedom of the watery habitat white swans who

Declare new safe nesting sites, man and river wars cease

Nature standing on the winning side on this occasion, smiles