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Posts Tagged ‘Somerset Levels’

For the background, see below and the earlier, “Focusing My Efforts – Before…” but this blog concerns the second part, after my Mother’s death. Similarly it shows my thinking and expectations at that time, both would be subject to considerable change and for that alone to me, worth remembering the ‘difference’.

So, Part Two…

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I started writing this blog in November 2007 but its content tends to be more political than personal so about a year ago, I set up another blog with the intention of that being both more personal and intimate. However, for a whole number of reasons, I was just far too busy to maintain two blogs and since have been even busier in ‘doing up’ the house, I therefore decided to close the second one down.

However, the handful of entries whilst not great prose or great ideas, do cover the period up to my Mother’s death and beyond so, in that sense, are most certainly ‘personal and intimate’. In many respects, whilst people commenting and ‘following’ my blog is not that important to me, every entry in some way, is a snapshot of where I am or was at a given moment in time and relative to some ‘issue’. It is not a conventional Diary but perhaps more of a Journal as in recording a journey so below and in sequence are those entries in two long blogs.

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It was sometime in early March, following my Mother’s death at the end of January, that I embarked on the “Great Redecorating Programme”. How high were my hopes to finish this all in 3 months, no problem ! But alas, the best laid plans of Mice and Men…In truth, there were all kinds of contributory reasons that conspired to cause delays.

Due to the incompetence of a Bank, settling my Mother’s rather simple estate became overly complicated and delayed but also, I rather underestimated the scale of the task I had taken on. I admitted this to a friend of mine the other week and he just laughed, he and his wife had decided that a couple of months back ! However and for all that, looked at another way, my original finish date was end May, the ‘overshoot’ is only about 6 weeks which is not the end of the World.

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There is a lovely line in a John Lennon song, “Beautiful Boy” dedicated to his son Sean that says; “Life is what happens to you whilst you are busy making other plans.” What makes it such a great line is that it contains an essential truth that has also previously been expressed as; “Man proposes, but only God disposes.”

In simple terms, we imagine in our lives that it “will be this” and instead, it turns out to be “that” instead and for me throughout my life, this has often been a repeating pattern although at the age of 64, 65 at the year end, I had expected to be left to quietly grow old, disgracefully or otherwise in this little seaside town on the Bristol Channel but, I suspect not.

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Early last Saturday morning I called the Ambulance and my Mother was taken into Weston Hospital. It was an “odd call” in the sense that there was not any one specific ailment to point to like say a heart attack. Possibly she had Flu, certainly a leg infection that was very painful plus she has the most awful pressure sore on her bottom. In fact it turned out that she had three separate infections but none responded to treatment.

I visited her and spoke to her on Sunday morning when she was a gibberish truth to tell but as I looked at her lying in her bed, I was taken straight back to a Hospital in Wandsworth in the late 1970′s where her Mother was just prior to her death, exact same look. When I visited again later that afternoon, she was very deeply asleep although she was apparently pretty sparky that evening when my eldest Son, his wife and my Granddaughter visited her.

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The film “Groundhog” starring Bill Murray is one of my favourites and in some ways, we all have Groundhog experiences in life, mine and for over a year has been a personal saga of in-growing toenails which hardly sounds that exciting which, it isn’t to an outsider but both painful and crippling to the person living with them.

The truth is, like a latter day Boston Tea Party, my two Big Toes have risen up in rebellion against the rest of my body. They are demanding one to one attention on an unprecedented scale and will brook no negotiations upon the matter, their war of attrition continues unabated as they take it in turns to cause aggravation !

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I should be neither unkind nor unfair but I was not that impressed with an article in the Independent today written by a lady called Yvonne Roberts and entitled; “The age of the aged has at Long Last Arrived.” The link as follows: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yvonne-roberts-the-age-of-the-aged-has-at-long-last-arrived-1855413.html

I thought the article rather lightweight simply because in a style typical of people like her, there is far too much “either/or” rather than  “and”, life is not simple, it is complex and “individual people” based but, read and judge for yourself. To say that the old are wise and the young foolish maybe correct in some cases, the point is, it is not true in all cases and likely, not in most either.

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So here we are again, the end of another year and decade, the start of a new one and what an odd year 2009 has been. At a personal level I am frankly amazed that my Mother is still with us, bits fall off and yet she still struggles on ! My own year has been dogged with repeating ingrowing nail problems and as a consequence, repeating infections and my immense frustration with Doctors ! But having said that, I close 2009 with the best photographic kit I’ve ever had and a very clear mind.

On the political front, Gordon Brown has stumbled from one crisis to another, all Members of Parliament have been bought low by the “Expenses Scandal” which I have always thought rather overblown but the public have used it as a stick to beat with in terms of “payback time” and a General Election must be held within 5 months… good fun all round.

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At the beginning of October I mentioned in another piece that I had picked up a rather nasty bacterial infection called Cellulitus which inflamed one leg to twice the size of the other. I detest being “ill”, have never been the kind of person who described a cold as “Flu” and have a reasonably high pain threshold but I must admit that in the earlier stages, it was very painful.

Still the main problem was that as I have a housebound 89 year old Mother to look after, being “not well” can only be a part time activity at best and so all activities have to be prioritized into essential and non-essential tasks. To me though the biggest loss due to necessity was having to suspend my morning bike rides.

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As this boring “MPs Expenses” saga goes through its death rattle, every idiot and their Mother is trotting out their pet ideas which are motivated by either personal interest or just plain ignorance, in the latter case the National Tooth Fairy would do them just as well, Boogie Woogie have a sixpence Click Clack !

If you are Nick Clegg and a Libdem, the fact that the Liberals lost their “Radical Party Crown” to the Labour Party a hundred years ago and haven’t managed to reclaim it back from them because of the Liberals own lack of imagination and drive, clearly needs Proportional Representation to make up for their past failures under our “first past the post system” – “Change the system to suit us and our total lack of competence is their cry…” Enchanting and I think not !

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