Imelda - He Said 'Yes'! (to the Cameras).

22nd September 2013

A Possible Solution and more diary entries.

I went to visit a certain store yesterday and look what I found..

The sign says 'One pair of feet 78 pairs of shoes'.

Almost there..

I am not sure a classy look such as the above would fit in with the ... ahem.... style and theme of Imelda's house though.

It would go well in my house but then I would need more shoes... Hmm now there's an idea!

Imelda is all excited as he has agreed to have the TV cameras and crew round about the filming next week for the TV documentary on Channel 5 he will be participating in on hoarding.  They have spoken to him and he is up for it.  I've talked him through what may happen and what he has to be careful about saying and not saying.  I don't want them to film the front of the house because it is fairly distinctive and I don't want it to be recognised.  

I have an overwhelming urge to go over and 'tidy up'.  If it were my house being filmed I would have it all tidy/polished/hoovered with its teeth clean and hair brushed.  This is not quite the point though is it?

I had a few minutes today to read through more of my mother's diaries.  She wrote a few of them at various stages.  She seemed to have started writing with all good intentions, carried on for a few weeks, then stopped then picked up a few years later and continued for a few more months.

One dated 19.12.1982   'House still in a mess, it gets worse and worse. I get very despondent and feel thoroughly ashamed when I see the playroom - especially when he puts the light on.  The kitchen is still not finished after twenty years.  He says it is getting better but it isn't'.

:(  Other comments on there best kept to myself and family but I see where she was coming from.

I am determined to find more out from neighbours and her friends and people who knew her around that time.  She talks about having a long talk with various people.  I intend to track down these people.  It is so sad that I was pretty much oblivious at the time being only a teenager.  It is strange that although the mess was evident then (although nowhere near as bad as it is now), it was something which was normal in our house.  Of course I was aware it wasn't normal anywhere else.  I was majorly embarrassed by it and never invited friends/boyfriends around.  I kept my own room tidy and refused to put up with anyone else's stuff in it.  I spent a lot of time in my room which was the only tidy room in the house. Back then I was a teenager and this is what teenagers do.  I do remember feeling that my room was the only room where I had any sense of control and calm.  I could relax and read a book.  Even now, I can't relax and do something like reading a book if  I'm in a messy room.  I have to clear the mess before I can relax.

Goodness only knows how I'd handle not having any control of a mess that bad in my own house.  Imagine not being able to relax anywhere in your own house because every single room had piles and piles of somebody else's rubbish stacked up.  So much rubbish that there was no longer anywhere to put it.  Most people I know need to have some kind of order in their lives.  Somewhere where they have some control.  Imagine not having one single 'happy place' where you could go.  Your own home being a permanent reminder that you are not in a happy place and that you have no happy place.

I guess in this situation you would take to going to every friend and neighbour's house you could find.  There were many diary entries to this effect.  Around the time of the entries I was reading today was 'Passed my Open University Degree. Feeling on top of the world'.  That was 1984.

Ten years later - in 1994 she passed away aged 59.  She had spent about 5 years in the local mental hospital (sorry if I have't used the correct term here).  This is odd as 59 is very, very young to die from Alzheimers.  'Alzheimers Disease' was a term flung about by the medical profession and by various social workers at the time as they could not label it anything else. This was never diagnosed. Mum herself believed she was having some form of breakdown due to overdoing things.  She certainly had a lot on at the time - Open University, 2 teenage kids and working in a high school full time teaching English (which if you ask me was an evil job and one I could never, ever do and all teachers of teenagers should have an award for bravery).

I guess I'll never know for sure.  I will try to out the truth though.  I have to know.  I have to find out for her.  Also because if Alzheimers is hereditary (I have been told 'sometimes it can be - especially early onset Alzheimer's', then it is obviously something about which I am particularly concerned).

If it wasn't, then this gives me some kind of peace of mind in one way but makes me extremely angry in another.

Interestingly there were many comments in the diary to say that Imelda and I were 'constantly niggling' at each other.

So - on a different note I am cuddled up on the sofa with my favourite pet.  My corn-snake 'Trouser'.  He is feeling sorry for himself as he is about to shed his skin This makes him just want to curl up under a rock.  He is one of the lucky ones who has a nice warm, tidy, dark rock where he is perfectly happy to go for a few days in total safety until things get better.  It is his happy place.   He is currently coiled up on my lap all warm and cuddly and fast asleep.  Awww bless him.

PS. I am aware some of the things mentioned above have been mentioned in previous posts.  I have mentioned them again as they are important and not everybody will be able to read every post.