Flamenco Shoes for two left feet and Ambrosia.

Friday September 6th 2013

Flamenco Shoes and Ambrosia

Round to the mountain for 9.30am today.  The social worker is calling at 1.30 so I want to be able to give her positive news.

Today my friends Rhian and Cath came round to help. I think as much as I blog the photos and as much as I write you just cannot get a grip of the enormity of this mountain  until you see it in person and see the clouds are lower than the top. (Ok possibly a slight exaggeration but not much).  I think they were both shocked even though they had both read the blog beforehand.

I thought it was best to start with the bedroom upstairs.  I do not currently have a bed in the now clear upstairs room (below) as the ones previously in there had more moths than a moth farm in a mothy day in Mothsville.  One was so badly decayed it collapsed with shock as we put it in the car.  The other was full of horsehair which is not going to help anybody with an allergy to horses who may have to sleep on it.  So anyone with a single bed frame they do not want or and a single mattress please let me know (the higher the frame the better) preferably not a divan base though due to the dust issue.

So I either have to go buy a new single bed or clear a space around the one he already has.  I need to clear the bedroom anyway so we started there.

I had warned the girls not to come all 'glamour-chick'.  The dust flies and it makes you feel disgusting after ten minutes.  They went upstairs and got stuck in straight away.  The IKEA bags came in handy as we filled them up and carried the junk downstairs and emptied it on the lawn for me to check and sort.  There were a lot of old papers but I also found a special edition of the 'STAR WEEKLY' a Canadian paper celebrating the royal visit to Canada of the queen mother and princess Elizabeth and princess Margaret in 1939.  I found a very old pair of round glasses with the curly ears, they were in a case and they looked very much like the ones you see in the photos in the late 1800s.

 I also found my Christening bracelet and a few items I remember from when I was weeny.  Cath found a few fivers - not sure if they were the colourful ones similar to those I found the other day which they refused to accept in the pub on Saturday night.  I will stash them with the others.  I may need them for a bed.  Also there were about 9 tins of Ambrosia in the bedroom expiry date 2014.  I am not sure if the thing which was most amazing was that he kept Ambrosia in the bedroom or that they were in date.  Nothing surprises me in that house any more.

Two years ago the old stick went on holiday to Benidorm and bought some Spanish Flamenco shoes.  He got home and told me he had bought them only there was a small problem in that somehow he had managed to buy a size 22 and the other was a 23.  He asked me if possibly they may be OK - he suggested perhaps a bit of tissue paper could be put in the foot of the larger one.  Well, I guess  that MAY have been an extreme option for an hour or so - except he had 'misplaced' them and so they had to make do with a box of roses for Christmas. Oh yes and he failed to notice they were both left shoes.  Someone saw him coming!  We found the shoes today now too small.

I also found more of the old stick's shoes - about 13 shoes this time 12 of which were paired in boxes.  The girls came downstairs and the dust was making them sniffle and getting in their eyes.  I found some of the dust masks (unused) I had found a few days back at base camp.  However the elastic had totally disintegrated and so they were useless.

I came home with Oggy full of bags again (above).  I think she could auto pilot herself to the skip now she has been there so often.  While I was there the social worker rang.  She said the consultants are starting to ask questions as to why he can't go home.  I suggested she show them this blog. She said she KNOWS I am working hard but that they need a date. Um!  She said the carpet on the stairs (not the rolled up one but the one fitted to the stairs) has to go as it is threadbare and therefore dangerous.  She said wooden stairs are preferable.  Ideally he should agree to have the rolled one fitted to the stairs - killing two birds with one stone.  I tried to get the social worker to suggest this to him.  Not sure how that idea will pan out.  Also there needs to be enough room to move about for him and any helpers he may have.  She also said he will need help bathing. Ewwwww.  She said he is quite confident in my ability to do everything for him, go there to put on his brace and take it off and cook.  I did point out I have a family with three small children, I work 22 hours a week and I am also hoping to return to college next week for my year two of the carpentry course.  The social worker said they can get a home help to do some of these things.  I have been warned that I need to accept the help from the outset as it can be decreased but it is very difficult to get the help increased.

She did ask if I knew anyone who may offer to look after him for a few weeks.  I don't!  She will call me again on Monday.

Any offers???

Thought not!

Funny, I have been doing a lot of posting on Facebook recently and have been hearing a lot about my mum in the days before she got sick.  As far as I was concerned at the time she was suffering from Alzheimers, however this was never confirmed.  It is not on the death certificate and nowhere can I find this on her medical records.  Bearing in mind she was 59 which is VERY young. She certainly was going through some form of mental 'distress'. It started when she was about 47 as far as I can work out.  I am about that age now and so am particularly concerned each time I go upstairs for something and forget what that something was  the minute I get upstairs.  I forget names and simple stuff and even forget what I was saying halfway through a sentence.  I do find though that after being in that house for more than a few minutes I have to get out.  Not just the dust but mentally. I have to escape the mess.  I could not ever relax in surroundings like that.  My kids are messy but their mess is just kids mess - just there as they are too busy doing kids stuff.  None of the kids mess will be there long.  They will pick it up and put it somewhere else.  It may drive me scatty but I know given an hour or so I could have everything ship shape and smelling of roses if needed.  The mountain however is a different matter entirely.  Plastic bags have been there so long they have disintegrated, - these are the same plastic bags the council have banned the shops giving away free in Wales now because they take so long to decompose (not in that house they don't).  There are things in there that I broke/grew tired of/threw out when I was in school and there they are in the layer of junk corresponding to the year I threw them out.  Shoes I had when I was six have reappeared. A bottle of hand cream I threw out because I did not like the smell, a pair of tights which had a hole in, a beret which went out of fashion, some shoes I tried to dye but went purple instead of black. A Christmas card from my pen pal, my old school books, a broken ornament, my school socks.  My marbles..

All things I know I must have thrown out are still in the house so I am throwing them out for the second time.  Again this is why I go to the skip and then I know they are truly gone.  I get a very smug feeling of satisfaction with every bag I throw over the edge of a skip.

I know if I were forced to live in that house with that junk, not being able to throw it out I would lose my marbles completely - both the glass ones and the mental ones.  I hate to say it but could it possibly have been a contributing factor to mum's downfall... I can't handle more than about an hour at a time in there.  I feel all claustrophobic and I have to get out.  it is like some form of nightmare where the house is eating me.  Everywhere you look is stuffed with stuff.  How could anyone relax in that chaos? It is like a horror film with the walls caving in and black stuff oozing out of cupboards, whenever you clear stuff more stuff appears, stuff you threw out years ago comes back to haunt you.. wait a minute reality is blurring into my nightmares here.  It makes it worse in that the two houses either side are also the same design and of similar size.  They are both well maintained stunning looking houses and both very tidy.  I would LOVE to live in either of the houses next door.  My friends who come to help all say what a lovely house it is but what a shame it is like it is.  I have no doubt one day it will become gorgeous again but not before a few nice yellow skips have been to visit.  Funny, the garden is almost perfect.

Anyway, I will be off to bed now for a bit of a kip.  I hope I will not have nightmares about man eating houses.  I am relaxing with some lovely chocolate liquer chocolates which my lovely cousin Tanith sent me.  Thank you Tan you are a  super hero.

xxx