Last Tuesday, we hit peak ‘I told you so’. Mum has got more wobbly and her instinct is to try and use walls and furniture to balance, which sort of leads to chaos as she has no depth perception any more. I’ve been saying that she needs to stop using the bathroom sink because she’ll pull it off the wall. You know where this is going, don’t you? The most unbelievable part is that this sink was considered usable and not an urgent repair, in the house of a 77 year old with balance issues who goes to the toilet every two hours and in the night. As the day progressed, it got further away from the wall without being touched. But they came out on Wednesday to make it safe. Which as great except it’s damaged the pipes going into the sink and it’s now leaking. So we’re waiting on another call out.
In other local news, Ealing Council want to build a temporary theatre in the middle of Walpole Park. Every summer, they wall off a section for the various Ealing Summer Festivals and that’s great but putting a semi permanent theatre there is just ridiculous. It’ll be run by Troubadour, and it’ll ruin the park. So that’s fun!
I went to Sue and Richard’s for dinner on Saturday night, it was lovely and it’s important that I do find time for my life, but I’m a bit peopled out. I find myself fantasising about islands with no people, I need a couple of weeks where no one wants anything from me!
And there was cake!
I’m still working on making my flat tidier, but I left it today at zero laundry and cleaned the hoover. It’s very annoying that the things we use to clean require cleaning, I need to do the washing machine next!
This week is a very social week for Mum. Her friends, Sue and Sandy are coming over tomorrow, (uncle Ian and maybe Kate) on Wednesday. I’m going into the office on Thursday and Sally is going to visit her then. She’s going to be exhausted by Friday!
My plans for this week are no plans. Lots on the to do list though. I’m just at the stage of life where there is no real free time. I can steal time from tasks but there is actually no point at which everything I need or want to do, is done. At the moment, self care doesn’t look like rest, it looks like kicking myself up the arse and doing the next thing, I do have a lot more sympathy for why mum was so grumpy in her 50’s though!
Every year about this time, it dawns on me that I’m going to have to cope my way through another winter and I write a post on how I’m planning to handle it.
Yes, winter happens every year and I should be unsurprised by it but the impact it has on my mood surprises me every year because summer me feels like who I am and winter me comes as a shock to the system.
Anyway, I had my moment at the beginning of September and I’m slightly changing up the routine this year because of the caring for mum aspect of my life. Last year, we didn’t change any of the things (I just bought a wake up lamp for mum’s house) and hung on. I did survive winter but it was harder than usual, I got sick and it was just very difficult. So I sat down with my therapist and made a plan which always helps.
Sleeping at mums
The first thing is that I need to be more intentional about basic self care. Things I can wing in Summer need to be cast iron in winter. Which always starts with sleep.
I’m always tired (I’m in my 50’s and menopausal of course I’m tired). At Mum’s, I’m consistently in ‘bed’ for about 10:30pm and mostly asleep by 11pm because Mum starts bedtime at 10pm. At home, it’s all over the place (this is a theme!), so I need to do at home what I do at Mum’s. One of the things I did this weekend was tidy around the flat and clear my bedroom, to make it a calmer place for sleep. That work is ongoing, but I know it helps…
Next up is consistency with the vitamins and supplements (omega three, vitamin d, magnesium, agnus castus and a multivitamin, in case you’re interested), I was quite flaky with that last year and while I have been better over summer I need to keep that consistency over the winter. I’ve also added electrolytes back in because they seem to help my stomach and it’s another way of getting water into me in the morning before coffee. As an aside I’ve found Vimto flavoured ones that are fantastic.
A typical mum meal
So on to my diet. It’s pretty good, I have eaten slightly more processed food this year, because I’m feeding Ma (fishcakes and the Saturday fishfingers and chips being the main culprits). Again the issue isn’t really when I’m with Ma, (consumption of jelly tots aside), it’s when I’m home. I have to cook at Mum’s, and cooking at home tends to be things to take to Mum’s for her and then I just graze and eat whatever is handy. So I need to plan things to eat for when I’m home and for my day in the office. Given that I meal prep really effectively for Ma, it’s ridiculous that I don’t for me. What I am going to do is start planning for both of us. That is a work in progress but I’m getting there.
Ma’s breakfast, lunch and dinners (when I’m not there) prepped for the week
There are a couple of things that I do in winter that I just can’t do at Mum’s, my nightly 20 minute bath can’t happen at Mum’s because she only has a shower, so I need to replace it with a 20 minute walk on the treadmill. Which is apparently as effective AND gets me exercise. More generally I need to exercise more, and for every 60 minutes I spend sitting, I need a five minutes of activity. So I’m starting that and working on being consistent with it this month.
The big change this year is a light lamp. In previous years, I’d made the decision not to have a blue light, they really can be dangerous things if used incorrectly and they are only effective when you use them regularly preferably first thing in the morning, whereas CBT is more effective long term. However, I’m stretched quite thin at the moment and everything I would usually do isn’t quite cutting it or can’t be done so we decided it was worth trying. The downside is that they do involve the discipline of getting up and being in front of one first thing (which I’m not going to enjoy on days I have to be in the office or up early for something else) but nothing comes easy right now so this is a tiny adjustment that could help. I’m currently doing that for 15 minutes a day, working up to 30 minutes. It’s too early to say it’s working but maybe I’ll update in October.
One of the other things I want to do is more getting out of the flat with Mum. Mum lives on the first floor and there are two flights of stairs. Hauling the wheelchair up and down is not my favourite thing and Mum finds the stairs difficult and they are only going to get harder. So it’s a bit of a mission but when we do get out, we are both better for the fresh air. So we’re going to try doing it once a week.
It’s all effort but it’ll be worth it for a better winter. I’ve said before that the annoying thing about life in general and depression in particular is that nothing comes easy and the feeling comes after the action. I act and then I feel better. This is always how it works in winter, I need to grit my teeth and push through it now, so the winter doesn’t completely crush me.
Last week really felt like ‘back to school’. It’s the dark mornings, i know I do this every year but apparently my favourite time of year is when it’s light at 5am! I happily for me, and my hatred of early mornings, the light lamp is helping, I was working this morning and full of energy.
I ordered some plants before the bank holiday and they have finally arrived. Did I have time to plant them out. Nope. They are currently watered and in the porch! I have some food plants due to arrive this week. Second time lucky but I can’t praise the customer service from Cornish Cabbage Plants enough!
My anti SAD plan started last week which meant I spent a large part of the weekend, unfucking my flat. It’s not all the way tidy yet but I’m feeling more in control of it, I’m also (after five loads of washing in a day) up to date on the laundry and 60% through the ironing. I hoovered yet but next weekend it’ll all happen..
I got a new cookbook last week It looks great but I really need to find a Sunday afternoon to cook from it.
I’m rubbish at keeping in touch with people, especially people who live very far away, so it lovely when I manage to reconnect with them, which is something I did on Saturday with my friend Maxanne, who is back in Europe next month. We’re going to go out for drinks and I should also mention Chrissy, who is the complete opposite of me and is brilliant at keeping in touch with everyone! I’m really looking forward to seeing them both in person next month.
Max’s little girl Murphy back when they lived here, shes a very sophisticated high schooler now..
Plans for this week are low key, my uncle is coming to see mum tomorrow, I’m going to Sue and Richard’s for dinner on Saturday (Richard is out of hospital and has what we all hope will be his final knee – three in less than a year has been hard but hopefully no more knees and no more infection!), Ma and I are planning a wheelchair excursion. I’m starting an 8 week course for work and I have big organisation/cleaning plans for home (I need to clean some windows at home and Ma’s net curtains need taking down and washing!)
This has caused great hilarity with friends of mine deciding to hide the knowledge of it from their husbands.
UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing. It shouldn’t be an accusation, it’s a statement of fact. I’m glad we’re doing it but honestly, we should be doing more. I would like anyone with a UK passport living in a settlement in the West Bank to have their passport removed. If we do to muslim terrorists, we should do it to Israeli ones.
I am sending the assisted dying bill back to the Lords – and this time, peers must do the right thing. The Lords are an unelected body and really need to get back in their box. I support assisted dying and the argument about the lack of decent care is a consideration but the response is to make decent care available, even with the most amazing care available, my mum would want the option (this Bill wouldn’t help because she would be judged to lack capacity but as soon as she was diagnosed, she booked an appointment with the GP to have the discussion about DNR and wanting all her treatment from then on to be palliative – I was in bits, but she was very clear!)
It’s time for a Gardeners’ World that reflects Britain’s gardens in all their messy, realistic chaos For the record, I’m not a massive Gardeners’ World watcher but I really like Monty Don and I think some of the criticism of him has been a bit mean. However, I can never get the memory of him talking about being broke and having no money but going to a tree sale and getting an overdraft for £20,000 for trees. I love looking at his garden, but that garden doesn’t at all reflect my reality of gardening. In terms of location, money, time and help. I think that’s generally right, take the advice that works for you, admire what others do, but don’t compare your garden to others, just love what you have and if you don’t love it, the joy of gardening is that you can change it!
This is a recipe from Victoria @fourwallsfarm on Instagram and her version of the bircher served at the Savoy.
Bircher is a form of overnight oats, and like overnight oats they are not pretty, but it adds a different type of fibre to my diet and I find it leaves me feeling fuller for longer than my usual Greek yoghurt and fruit does.
Not pretty but it tastes 1000 times better than it looks
As ever, I have made a couple of changes. For all oat recipes I use the four-grain muesli mix from Hodmedods, I don’t generally have golden raisins knocking about the house, but I always have mixed fruit so that went in instead, I also added four teaspoons of ground flax/chia seed (I take equal amounts of both and grind them together). Finally, I doubled the recipe, because I cannot be faffing about with half an apple.
That gives me four portions and covers breakfast for most of the week. I eat with additional fruit and maybe some compote – rhubarb is my preference or lemon curd!
How it looks for breakfast
What
120g hodmedod’s 4 grain muesli mix
4 teaspoons ground flaxseed/chia seed
200g greek yoghurt
40g honey
40g apple juice
6g lemon juice
20g dried mixed fruit
1 grated peeled apple (Granny Smith for preference but use what you have)
How
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, divide into jars, leave overnight night!
It’s the second week of September and autumn. It gets dark before 8pm and sunrise today was at 6:23. It’s sort of taken me by surprise, at the weekend I reset the light lamps!
I finished a cross stitch project last week! It only took me a year. Although in fairness I was three quarters of the way there at Christmas and then mum gave me the bigger one to work on when I was at hers. This got relegated to home and I don’t get a lot of downtime when I’m at my house!
After a chat about it with the therapist, I’m going to start using a SAD lamp. Previously, (after lot of research and reading), I had decided not to, however over the last couple of weeks as it’s been getting darker, I’ve been more than tired. I also have more stressors in my life right now so the therapist suggested that this might be a good time to trial it. I don’t love early dark mornings so getting up earlier to sit in front of a lamp w is not something I’m going to enjoy but if it helps with the exhaustion I’ve been feeling then it’s probably worth it!
Last week was a haircut day. Which is always fantastic, we get to see Jane, I get to see from under my fringe but it does mean that mum needs to be up and showered earlier than usual. Last Tuesday involved an earlier bus (6:30am instead of 7:30am). It’s a much busier bus and we got stuck behind a bin lorry in Ham (the peaks and troughs of excitement in my life are much different in my 50’s than my 20’s!)
There seems to have been a sunflower growing contest in my street this year, I don’t know who won, but this one would get my vote!
September also marks the beginning of ‘birthday season’. There is a family birthday every month from now until Christmas. We start with the youngest nephew’s this week, then it’s my brother in October, the eldest nephew in November and Mum in December. For me, I also have lots of friends having birthdays too! I need to go out and spend £40 on birthday cards and stamps
Plans for this week are few. My uncle is coming to see Mum on Tuesday, I think. I have a day in the Southampton office on Wednesday (oh 7am train from Surbiton I have not missed you!). I need to chase DHL and to find out why my cabbage plants haven’t arrived (I’m just having the worst luck with plant deliveries this year!).
I hope everyone has the best possible version of the week..
Last year, just before Christmas, I caught a cold, it lasted a number of weeks. One of things that helps me when I have a cold is ginger shots, there’s something about the ginger that helps my throat and stops me coughing.
I think I must have spent about £50 on ginger shots over the course of two and a half weeks and thought that it probably would have been cheaper to make them myself, so I bought a juicer.
‘Will it juice?’ Is now a legitimate question in my house. And it turns out the answer is usually yes.
Persimon came out like a smoothie. Lemon is better if you peel it first and apple, lemon and ginger shots are my thing! I tend to use 6/7 apples with two lemons and 250g ginger.
I put them in these bottles and if i think, I’m not going to get through them, throw them in the freezer for another time.
As we turn to darker days and I try to get my life slightly more structured, I’ve been using the juicer a bit more to make sure I’m using all up all the veg in the house. Having ginger shots in the freezer, is one of those useful things if I feel I’m getting a bit run down.
Anyone else ready for autumn on the plot, I’m just very tired of watering and I have things I want to get on with but the ground is rock hard. London has had some rain but not nearly enough!
So this week I did some smaller things. My extra garden waste bin arrived so I got all the various weed containers emptied into the bin and because it’s rained just enough to give the weeds hope, weeded at the front, the front got weeded. On inspection of the plants that need to go into the ground, I spotted three salvias that I’d completely forgotten I had so I put them with the others.
There was also a valerian that I decided could go in the front. I do have some other plants that have yet to arrive, but when they do, I’m hopeful that that will help fill out the space.
I want to get to not being able to see so much soil!
The side beds the front also got a weed and then it was time to attend to the strawberry tower. I lost five plants but gained hundreds of runners from the plants that made it through but it was getting to the point where I couldn’t turn the tower because of the runners, so I tidied and replanted some of the runners in the gap, and then took about 50 of them (which I think was about a quarter of them) and put them in pots, they may or may not root and if it’s more than I can use, I’ll give them away or they could go to next years plant sale.
The tidied up strawberry tower
After some tomato collection it was time to water, everything got very thoroughly watered, which takes hours. And there was a lot of chatting.
The wild tomatoes, and the plants that need places..
Next week, I do have planting out to do, I have brassicas from the Cornish Cabbage Plants (kale, sprouts, spring greens and broccoletto) arriving, instead of sending seedlings and plugs, they grow the plants outside and then dig them up and send them to you. The idea is that you stick them in the ground when you get them and they are hardier than seedlings. Someone recommended them and I thought I’d give them a go. So my sole goal is to get them and the leeks in beds and covered with mesh.
Dahlia complete with bee
I think that gets us in good shape for the winter and then with any luck conditions will improve so I can work on some of the longer term projects!
Despite the Met Office’s promises, it refused to rain in London in any great amount last week. There was some rain but it’s made no significant difference to the state of the plot.
I’m not the only one, it’s been hard this year and it feels silly to plant anything for winter at the moment because it’ll just wither unless it’s watered every day. However, I do have some kale, broccoli, sprouts and cabbage coming because hope springs eternal!
I have noticed that tomatoes are self seeding all over the place though and I suspect if we had this summers heat with a bit more rain, I’d have self seeded tomatoes everywhere!
This one is the only ‘wild’ tomato that’s managed fruit
This week on the plot was about getting distracted. I started at the top of the plot and worked down.
So I picked and tidied the tomatoes. I cleared out the cucumber plants and cut back the cape gooseberries in the poly. Harvested my two melons and some peppers and then watered the mini orchard, tomatoes and polytunnel.
Melons
In the middle of the plot I tidied up the chard and chamomile, and cut back the oregano on the path by that bed.
The small asparagus and strawberry bed got a tidy and I called time on the raspberries. They haven’t been watered and it showed. So I cut most of them down and weeded the iris bed.
While I was thinking about I started to trim the rose that I plan to take out in the winter, it’s a nightmare and is halfway over the path and what used to be the alpine strawberry bed, which also got weeded.
Then to the front of the plot. I need to fill those beds. I planted some poppies, some more shasta daisies this time in white and two bronze fennel. I’m not sure that they’ll live but we’ll see. I also have a some echinacea (pink and white), a Russian sage and some osteospermum in white. My hope is to pack that bed full in the hope that it’ll help keep the weeds down or at least distract from them a bit!
Chard bed
Then it was time to water the rest of the plot and go home.
I have Friday off and a bank holiday so I’m hoping to get more than a day on the plot next weekend.
My mission is to sort out a couple of beds to fill with leeks.
The new leek beds
I also have some other plants that need to be put somewhere.
I’m still waiting for the promised rain, we’re on a weather warning for tomorrow so maybe things will be slightly more alive over the weekend.
I know that it’s only been a month since the World Cup, but football provides me with a rhythm. There have been a couple of unexpected results I’m hoping that Chelsea vs. Fulham isn’t one of them!
The weather has been more reasonable but the rain was not significant. It’s frustrating to hear flood warnings but not to have anything remotely deluge like. Then on Friday, came the news that El Niño may next year the hottest year yet. I’m currently looking at watering systems for next year and may just turn the polytunnel over to melons and watermelons! However, it’s a bank holiday next week and I have Friday off so the prediction is rain from Wednesday to Monday and I’m not even cross about it.
Everything is yellow
I’ve noticed cats being weird. Last week it was the cat outside my house, this week it’s the cat on a roof at mums
This week in ‘things I thought I grown out of but apparently manifest when I’m tired’. On Saturday, I went to Mum’s as usual but left my keys in my front door. If I haven’t said it recently I’m so grateful for my friends and lucky to have the nearby ones, pop round, check and pick the keys up and then feed me dinner when I pick them up. I also got to admire the tree lights, because Kathy is full on sparkly lights make me happy and I’m with her on that!
A while ago, possibly before Christmas, the smoke detector in the kitchen started beeping and fell out of the ceiling. I still don’t know why, there was no smoke, I wasn’t even cooking. It’s wired into the mains, so it dangled from the ceiling and there it has remained. It is a five minute job but it’s a five minute job that involves me having to get the ladder and the drill out and working out how to open the smoke detector to get to the screws and then I get annoyed about workmen screwing things straight into plaster board with nothing to hold them in and it’s actually something I should call the landlord about but I’m not going to do that. However, it’s been bugging me, so I did a quick and dirty fix with No More Nails (I know) but done is better than perfect.
I finally bought a stand that holds an embroidery hoop so I can cross stitch at home. I have the big project that mum bought me at Christmas at her house but I’m slowly finishing the one of the Baltic at home and it slow because it’s awkward, this has helped. (Yes I’m fully embracing middle age and old lady hobbies, I’m not ashamed!)
Plans for this week are mum and work and back exercises (it’s not a surprise that my back hurts, I’m surprised it doesn’t hurt more!). Hope the week treats you well…
Nic Dempsey 