The care home

I haven't written about the care home, or rather I have, elsewhere.  I have been doing a few hours work in a local care home for adults with mental health problems.   These are the people who would have been institutionalised in mental hospitals years ago - not in our great care in the community culture they are institutionalised in care homes.   Some of them are more institutionalised than others.

The whole experience has been both shocking and delightful.  A few weeks ago I did my first lone session with them - half an hour with the dementia ward, and about 45 minutes with the others.  The dementia ward are apparently happy with a few verses of the hokey-cokey, a game of catch, a game of quoits and some half remembered songs :  "Who knows a song with a man's name in?"   "Henery 8th" so we drag out as much of it as we can remember (it's a miracle to me how much we do remember - were were singing "Lily of Laguna" the other day, I didn't even know I knew it).  Then I went over to the others, did some word games, and finishing lines - and some bits of songs - and left them wanting more... I left and sat in the car and felt really exhilarated.  I had been jumping about during the catch game and making them laugh - and singing and doing silly voices... they love it if I do a line of Shakespeare in a melodramatic voice  Hamlet, I am thy father's ghost, doomed to walk this earth... I've probably misquoted.  I loved it, because I had briefly made them happy, amused them.  And they are not happy, and doing that, if only for half an hour, was great.  But it was also hard work.  I am a very sociable person, I enjoy conversation - but there is an intensity in this situation - one has to be so careful - I can be only a limited version of myself, punches have to be pulled.

In some ways it's easy, they are adults, but their tastes are those of children on the whole - I needn't worry about whether they will have heard about Marx's theory of surplus value, or Montaigne's essays - and whether they'll think I'm pretentious if I mention them.  They won't have, and I won't mention them.  Nevertheless, it's a strain trying to hold oneself back - and also they have needs, and they are sensitive hurt, sometimes angry people - one can't go in and "perform" one has to engage with them.  And that's the work - what I'd really like to do is just go in and visit them.  Not be jumping about all jazz hands and jokes - and yet, yet, I love to make them laugh - I love it more than making anyone else laugh - because it's so rare and special.  If I don't go in, I can't do that.  

There is a very sickening reason for not going in though - it can be a bit boring.  Of course I do boring things all day - unpaid, so doing something boring for money ought to be more palatable.  Then again, once I begin to know them I can see which of them will begin to annoy me... and how will I stop this?  And I find it extremmely hard that I often can't understand what they are saying - their voices are often slurred - from their medication, or because they are lacking in the tooth department.

I am learning something about myself - there will be more work eventually - but not a 3.5hour session on a Friday afternoon.  I am learning something about my employer too.  She is a boss - and making the transition from a friend to her employee is difficult.  I suspect she would like me to do volunteering for some of the projects I do with her - but I am pretty adamant at the moment that I am not giving up precious time for free just now. I need to send off half a dozen submissions before the end of the month - and then get on with decorating the house for Christmas (papering the hall, painting the doors, putting up the curtain, repainting the bathroom etc.).

Hopping mad

Not really, I can walk - just not too much, and today I got through without a lie down to rest my foot.  No x-ray results until Monday - but my GP has given me penicillin because I said it felt like an abcess - it does, it's like a toothache in my foot.  It is fading, and I am not taking too many painkillers now.   I have spent the last couple of days more or less at the desk as usual - doing things for Architectural Archaeology, re-working the website text.  I should have just started from scratch - the trouble is I was editing M's format, which was his spontaneous choice... I didn't really think about it critically - fortunately, our website guru Rosemary did.

I realised this morning that I hadn't prayed for more work for a while.  I have basically accepted that there won't be any work before Christmas - and we are going to have to get by with loans from the boys... oh dear.  I won £25 on the lottery this week though, which is something.  We had a proposed visitor for 10 days, who has now changed her mind apparently.  I was offered a little bit of work on Friday, but don't think my foot will be up to it, also I just didn't feel I could quite face 3.5 hours of it.

But, latet anguis in herba...

...yes, the opera was fab, and the seats perfect, although my foot was a bit sore.  I woke up yesterday with sharp pains in it - and today my foot is in agony.  I can barely move it.  I managed to walk downstairs earlier, with difficulty - but I don't know what the hell's wrong with it.

I was hoping to capitalise on the joy of last night, by doing some bulb planting and tidiying up, followed by a social visit to Albion House... and I couldn't go.   Nothing seems to help, because if I alter my foot posture it is agony again for some time, until it settles down.  Even lying with it up on a pillow isn't very comfortable - nothing is.

An X-ray is necessary I think.

L'elisir d'amor - and bliss!

I was "quite transported" the other night, since on Saturday we went to the opera - the Glyndeborne touring company, at Canterbury - sat in the stalls thanks to dear Anna T who bought us these to "compensate" for the appalling seats we had when we saw "Nozze di Figaro" in the spring.  I had never seen L'elisir before, the only Donizetti I know is Lucia di Lammermoor - a different thing entirely.  I suppose it's a melodramma or dramma tragica?  whereas L'elisir is dramma iocosa... thus illustrating how Donizetti et al benefited from Rossini's opening up of the the strict categories of opera, so that composers could write in different styles.... but I digress (I must get some benefit from all that work I did on Rossini).

The production was stunning in so many ways - design, set etc. brilliant, lighting, and the setting - Fascist Italy with strutting Belcore and preening blackshirts... very clever.  Nemorino was played as a sort of Charlie Chaplin figure - pathetic and lucklustre, with a certain charm.  It really is a clever little piece, a melange of folk-tale elements and social comedy - the ancient rivalry between the farmer/peasant and the soldier (Far from the Madding Crowd might have borrowed some of its plot).

Surtitles make all the difference, because even a decent knowledge of Italian doesn't make it possible to follow it word for word - consonants get lost when words are sung - even by native Italians.  The singing was good - the chorus was fab (Glyndeborne really go for choruses - which is why the tickets are so expensive I suppose) and lots of amusing business - almost too much in places.  But it is genuinely a funny opera, and well acted, and the Dulcamara character is terrific.  I just loved it, and was sitting there, really enjoying it.  We had a drink beforehand and a drink at the interval and a good chat afterwards.  Anna had two tickets spare, because her boys didn't want to come, so we dragged Clare along and Anna & R brought Julia - who piquantly is the first wife of the naughty choirmaster... his current squeeze approached us during the interval to say "hi" and I wasn't sure whether to introduce Julia to her or not, as I'd only just met Julia I wasn't sure of the etiquette - but J soon proved to be a mensch and a really nice woman.  I liked her almost immediately, and Clare pounced to exchange views on the miserable lives of the Cathedral choristers.  For once Mark and I had landed on Planet Agreeable, and all it had cost us was petrol, parking and a round of drinks....

And, I want to put on record, it was absolutely lovely to see Robin who was, I thought, on really good form... and not a gibbering wreck as we had been told...

Astro-bollocks, but persuasive

Obviously it is the deep uncertainty of life that has driven me to astrology... but I do read the Bible as well... and the other day I suddenly remembered that there is a point in the birthchart called the Pars Fortunae or the Part of Fortune - in my case it is located in my 5th house - at 8 degrees 55 Aries... perhaps it is simply a coincidence that this is the point around which Uranus has been reversing for the last week or so.   It might well give one the "human pinball" feeling - as one bounced from one unwelcome surprise to another.  I never took much notice of it before - although I have always been pleased that it is located in the house of creativity, children and lurve... and perhaps the so-called Arabian parts should not be taken much notice of, but it is an interesting coincidence.

The bad news is that it will continue this messing about until mid-February - when it will travel away, at the same time it has been trine Venus... so perhaps this very long transit, which will finally be ending, will restore some sort of solid continuity.   Can I cope with another 2 months of this?  Well yes, probably....as long as it really does stop then.

Wondering whether I should re-dedicate this blog to astrology?  Perhaps I would get more readers.... advertising even.... money even.  A blog called Astro-bollocks? Might be of interest.

A note from March 2014.
Well - things are fiscally and generally better - although the rollercoaster hasn't stopped, I can see there maybe a day coming when things will clear up a bit.   Pity Uranus didn't give me some nicer surprises, but it's beetling off now and will soon be linking up with Saturn - which could be a bit more positive (I hope!).

There is a lesson in this! - Saturn returns

Had a lovely evening yesterday - even though we talked about ghosts and seeing things or feeling things generally.  Tara seems to see anything that's ghostly - in our house she spotted a "vicar" with long flowing white collar leaning against the chimneypiece.  He must be one of the Wesleyans that lived here, if so he is probably apalled by the strong language and strong drink that are taken here.

We also had a brief discussion about Saturn returns - so what I am about to say is perhaps a bit confused, because (a) I haven;'t arrived at my Saturn return yet - (b) Saturn is currently in my first house, in my birthchart it is in my 2nd house.  The idea of a Saturn return - I thought - was that it was a period of consolidation, of getting established in someway.  One's first Saturn return is often a time when people get married - 28-30. It is a time when one enters adult life fully.  The second one - which I expect to experience from November 2015 to December 2016 - is apparently the time when one reaches maturity.   Now, because Saturn is 2nd house I would expect it to be about money - but it seems to me that I am getting plenty of money lessons now - so I suspect that the Saturn return in my case will be a time when some of our financial matters will finally stabilise - or the lessons will have been learned.   I do hope that doesn't mean I will have to wait another 2 years for financial stability.  However Saturn enters the 2nd house a bit sooner than that - in January 2014 - so I will have to hope for some improvements then.   I suppose the symbolism of having Saturn in the second house is that one has to learn a lot of lessons through money... some say it is bad thing, some that it's a good thing... I don't know.  But perhaps, just perhaps, it will mean the end of the line, a time when I have finally learned not to waste money, not to have flashes of extravagance.   On the other hand, I would say my behaviour around money is pretty Saturnian just now.  Heavy, leaden restraint. I am usually on the case - although I still blench at the idea of looking at the bank statement, and would rather hide my head in the sand than look at some of the letters that arrive for us.  But eventually I do deal with them, although they seem to be very hard work.

So perhaps with my S return will come fiscal maturity - and money?  I live in hope - just another year or two of rejections then...I'm learning the lessons now so that I don't squander it all at once when it comes.

Human pinball

You know how pinball machines are - the ball careers around, slamming against different objects and rebounding, all the time drifting gradually downwards, then a frail flipper catches it and repells it - sending it back up again - and then around, on a different trajectory - drifting down again - and it continues until eventually the flipper fails and the ball disappears into the darkness.

That's me that is!   The downward trajectory has been marked in the last few weeks, with the complete absence of any job prospects at all for Mark - apart from the distant prospect of Jam in the form of the HLF bid - which we may or may not be included in, may or may not win etc.   However, a frail flipper protruded and gave me a tiny shove upwards, and, I thought the prospect of an exiguous - but welcome - regular income.  However, this flipper has now failed, apparently I was only be trained to do holiday cover.  This it must be said was never made clear to me, until yesterday, when I asked when I might next be required to work.  So I am careering off again, striking different objects, and wondering why a period of my life that astrologically speaking was said to be full of new opportunities, seems to be one actually of cul-de-sacs...

Others have worse situations!

Actually, this has been a bit of a disastrous period for a number of people I know - two of Finn's friends have lost their fathers young in the last few months, and one of them's mother has been killed by her father, last week.  There's the Philippines hurricane of course, and two people have had diagnoses of dreadful diseases - and only this morning my elderly cousin M has spent an evening in A&E - not good, and Anna's mother is very very ill. These things do occur in clusters - and I should be grateful that I'm not too close to all this.  

Another gentle flip up...

Since I wrote the above I've had a flip up - and found that instead of earning £24, I've earned £80 and Mark has earned £40 for something he did on a volunteer basis a couple of weeks ago.  This is a very nice surprise - so I am flipping upwards again - and will start crashing about again shortly.

My life as a medieval peasant

There is something medieval about trudging through the woodlands, carrying a sack (in this case an enormous plastic sack from John Lewis, rather than a hempen sack woven by my goodself) and gathering kindling for the fire, we also found a few larger bits of firewood - but for substantial pieces you have to go to the industrial estates and raid the skips - there are usually cast-off pallets being thrown out.  

I have always thought that our weird lifestyle - working from home, having a "family business" in which I occasionally labour etc., had elements of a medieval lifestyle.   This year with the decline of the central heating and our need to shroud ourselves in ever thicker shawls, jumpers, cloaks, we are looking decided medieval.   Stick gathering is just the outward sign of our grim lifestyle - increasing amounts of porridge, lentils and beans are other factors!

What I achieved today

I got up, bottled my quince jelly, then prepared the quince liqueur I'm making.  Then I finished my entry for the Bookseller's essay competition - not a hope in hell, but a great essay anyway!

Then I discovered I didn't have to do Deer Park - but took stuff over to Sheree, and then went to a supermarket to buy useful things like tea and bacon, and then to the farm shop for a vast sack of spuds.  When I came home M and I went to Chatham to have a meeting about Finn - which was a bit tricky, because Finn was being tricky.  We went home for tea, and I let F go out for half an hour to have a smoke.  Then he helped me defrost the freezer - after 3 years I suspect!  And then I photographed the ice pile and had jolly banter on FB.

So, although I haven't made any money today (I did investigate selling books on Amazon), I have done some literary work, some family/emotional work, and some domestic work, and some pre-Christmas preparations and had a bit of a social time.  So all good really!  Now, cook supper and have a drink with a quiet conscience.

Unfortunately I was not allowed to enjoy my quiet conscience, my gin, my supper, my coffee or my evening, because Finn, enraged at being grounded until he tidied his room spent a great deal of time snarling at me and bullying and cajoling me to unground him.  It was really horrible - no amount of speaking to him about it would deal with the problem, eventually M sacrificed his evening to cleaning up with Finn - I don't feel good about that either.  What an unpleasant end to a constructive day.

A dream of bungalows - and emptiness

I think I've had this dream before, I was in a place - some sort of garden centre, but the end of the plot was filled with bungalows - they were rectangular, flat-roofed structures, that seemed to be made out of plywood - painted yellows and creams,  with contrasting coloured window frames. More like over-sized Wendy houses or seaside chalets than real houses They were shuttered up and empty - and they were very 1920s-30s in appearance.  Additionally they were jammed together with no gardens.  There were gravelled alleys up the side, if you went up this they would end in another bungalow running paralell, blocking the view.  Occasionally behind the bungalows through a sort of hoarding with glass, you could glimpse an old swimming pool, which was empty.  For some reason I withdrew rapidly from the sight of this, it upset/frightened me.

The swimming pool was built on a grand scale, with brick arches around the inside of the pool - but I couldn't see the bottom from where I stood.  I knew it had been built for the bungalow people, as an amenity - but I worried that now that it had been emptied it would decay.  Further around I caught another glimpse of it, this time I could see some men at work on the ground nearby, and saw that the bottom of the pool, which was rounded at this point, contained a round, dark pool of muddy water.   I walked away from the bungalows, and back towards the garden centre, where there was a small lawn between the paths, with two large tree ferns, one a conventional one, one with pink spotted leaves.  A mother was saying proudly to her small son "That's the one we've got in our garden - a dicksonia grandiflora".  I thought that was strange because ferns do not flower (or not in any obvious way).

This was such a depressing dream that I woke up.  To me it seems obvious - houses usually represent oneself, but all these houses are "dead" - uninhabited, closed up, they are about the past - the sense of a once-thriving holiday community that's closed up and gone, abandoned.  The swimming pool is presumably one's emotional life - it's drained, empty apart from a muddy mess - I found beauty and relief in seeing the grass and the ferns, but even there I was reminded of a sort of sterility.  The woman with the child is perhaps me too, with a little boy, trying to teach him - "our garden" being the sense of the miniature paradise one tries to create in a family.

It is true - there is a part of me that feels very emotionally drained - and shutting myself up in some ways is how I deal with it - but this horrible sense of sterility - a lack of life.  Perhaps the green space was reminding me that family life was worthwhile - a source of growth.  At the moment, Finn's depression and so on make it hard for me to cope with anything.  I have been concentrating on dealing with the creditors one by one, and raising money where I can.  

The cold begins

Today was the first day I have felt cold all day, at least until I went into the kitchen at lunchtime.  I feel proud that I didn't turn on the fan heater - but the tip of my nose is cold, and my fingers.  Perhaps I should have done more typing.

We turned the heating on, morning and evening only, at the end of October when we had a BnB guest.  She left, but we kept the heating on.  Finn has stopped complaining about it - he has finally got it that we don't have it on all the time.  I have put it on during the day for visitors, but mostly we are managing by closing doors, more layers etc.  This won't last of course, it will get so cold that we won't be able to manage.  And I guess over the Christmas hols we will have it on a bit more.

I discovered that EDF the energy company offers poor customers a discount of £150 - this is great, unfortunately, our monthly bill is £230 - so £12.50 a month won't  make very much difference to us.   But I am aware that we can still do more to keep warm - I could, for example, wear boots rather than shoes, and get the thermal leggings on -  but I am keeping them for a really serious cold snap.

There really is nothing more we can do at present - but soon we will go out around the skips to find wood for the fires.  And perhaps, weather permitting, to the woods to get kindling.

Love, life and death

A friend of mine's husband died today.  He was 90 and had been ill for several years, and getting worse, so it was a blessing.  He was an old miner, he'd lost an arm in a pit accident - he was a traditional trade unionist, a socialist of the kind one now feels are passing away.  She once told me he was a womaniser - and he certainly had a bit of residual twinkle whenever I saw him.

They are the mysterious couple who stay together forever and she is about 85 I think - she really looked after him in the last years - hardly going out unless she could get one of their children to sit with him.  I dare not ask if she'd always loved him when I talk to her - their marriage was certainly eventful... they had 4 children - or was it 6 - I've never met any of them, but I've heard so much about them, although I'd be hard put to say which was which.

It's quite symbolic, dying at midday on the day of the solar eclipse - new moon.

While he was dying I was chatting with the local rabbi - and a lovely woman who runs the Montefiore Society - but chiefly the rabbi about why Jews weren't bothered about the afterlife... he said, inter alia, that looking for the afterlife was a poor reason for living an ethical life.  I think that's true - although I believe it's something.   He also told me a great many interesting things - a generally unbelieveably fascinating conversation.  He also told me some terrible stories about going on a tourist coach around Israel, where the bulk of the passengers were American Fundamentalists... at one point the guide - an Israeli - mentioned the apostle Jacob - then swiftly corrected himself to James - the American were ruminating on this, so the rabbi turned around and said "You know - Jacob is the hebrew name for James - that's why the followers of King James were called Jacobites".... blank looks, grumbling "Well, I've never heard anyone else say that before..." and general expressions of disbelief.   "At that point we decided we weren't going to bother with trying to educate them"... there were other anecdotes that made one wonder whether these people were of normal intelligence.

Love - yes, I was going to say something about Love too.  I was going to mention that in the last couple of days the pesky Love Object has been flittering into my brain again. I fear we will be seeing each other at one funeral or another within the next year.  I really haven't thought about him at all sometimes for days - which is a relief.  For some reason since seeing him in April (or was it May) I've not thought about him so much, perhaps because that meeting answered some of my questions about him - and I feel able to shelve him.  I'd love to see him again of course, but I don't look forward to the events which will precipitate such a meeting.