The Unscripted Carer – 23rd March 2008
A belated Happy Easter!
I don’t think I can remember “proper” snow at Easter, and it was quite pleasing when the dogs woke me earlier than usual, as if they knew that there was something new to play with! It then disappeared quite quickly during the morning, so the snow had the two virtues of being pretty and short lived.
The last two weeks have been quite busy, and rather rewarding. Nicola has finished her short story, and I think I have the ending of mine sorted out – now it just needs to be typed in.
I am hoping to get on a short course at the Rugby College, and the nice lady from Social Services is arranging an “In Your Place” person to look after Nicola while I am on the course. I am not quite sure what happens having completed the application form, I am a bit suspicious that it may not be as straight forwards as I have been led to believe – so I am just keeping my fingers crossed, and will make a few phone calls on Tuesday. In many ways this started from the writing course, and so we have both benefited from the stimulus of me going on the “Creative Writing” day set up by Guideposts, and I believe that there may be a repeat in Rugby. However, we benefited from it for some very strange reasons!
Last week was quite busy, firstly there was an extended meeting of the Rugby Carers Forum, to allow us to meet our new Rugby Care Support Worker, Mollie, in an informal setting before the main meeting. It seems that Rugby has found another gem to look after us, and we were all very impressed by the calm way she put all these “new faces” at our ease.
However, the highlight of my week was attending a seminar at Gloucester University about Carer Emergency Plans. It was a beautiful day, and I had the luxury of being driven there by as senior representative of “our” Social Services – who did all the hard work and the presentation. We are all used to a “post code” lottery being a polite way of explaining why we are getting the “dirty end”. However, the various presentations made it very clear that the Warwickshire Carer services are well ahead and are seen as trail blazers in the field of helping Carers – so in this case we are winners in the “post code lottery”!
Later, when I was taking the dogs out for their final walk, the night sky was quite magnificent – it was nearly a full moon and the clouds were dashing across the sky, rather like a Hammer horror movie. Usually when it is like this, and I have any energy left(!), by the time we get back home, the sky has clouded over, and is no longer photogenic. However, on this occasion I was able to get back, get the camera out and take a few pictures, before the battery ran out in the camera. By the time I had changed the battery the sky had lost its appeal, but the pictures I did take were very pleasing. My next job is to convince Nicola to write a story around these pictures!
Finally the vet confirmed that our older dog is developing cataracts, and is gradually going blind. This apparent bad news worries us more than it worries the dog, or the vets! Apparently, all we need to do is to keep the furniture in the house in roughly the same places, so poor old Max does not bump into things, and make sure that we take him outside around familiar places. It also explains why Bijou, the younger dog, has become more protective towards him, and always meets any “new dogs” before letting them near Max. It is also making Max a lot “softer”, and he actually seems to be getting bouncier – he particularly loves running into the spring winds that we have had recently.
Bye for now
Graham
