swilkinson

Asha has posted a new blog Asha's blogs are always interesting reading.

dream date

Asha, I understand. I increased my volunteering after Ray and Mum died. It is good to take care of family first. But take care of yourself too. Thank you for what you do here.

I am glad to see you are finding new things to do. It is not easy to reinvent yourself when the roles of wife and mother change to empty nesters. There are many new interests to take up and of course endless opportunities for volunteering. Including on here. Noone seems to be welcoming new members now. As a widow and with my children and grandchildren so far away I have to fill my life with other things so reading, gardening, shopping, handcrafts dominate but morning teas and lunches with friends are also important. The church takes quite a bit of my time, Lions Club too. In fact sometimes I am a little too busy. Without all of this I would be a sad and lonely person I think.

Sweets dreams

Find a post from him, click on the avatar or picture, that will take you to his profile. There is a letter sign, click on that and send him a message.

She is still posting on Facebook. She is on my friend list as are quite a few of past caregivers and survivors. I don't do chat here now.

Sweet tea

Asha I have just had my grandson Christopher here for four days. He saved up his student money to fly up from Melbourne. I said something to him and he said: "Grandma I'm an adult now." Point taken, he is 23 and doing a Masters in Biomedical Technology. But he is still my grandson and I thought I was guiding him but it was inappropriate. So back off Grandma. So it is just little things you say to guide rather than giving them a full on lecture. And laugh and joke and talk about the past and remind yourself that you need to back off to remain friends. And trust they will remember that coming home is about enjoying family not lectures about behaviour.

Deigh, someone has the repopulate our countries and I hope I get to see great grandkids before I die.

brown bread

It is great when one of the grandkids likes an activity you like or comes to you for advice. None of my grandkids crochet but I do cook with Christopher and do jigsaw puzzles with Alice when she is here. The others only come for short visits.

How do you get there Janelle? If it is a bus or train ride that would be fine. As you know it's an extra flight from Perth to Kalgoorlie so I have to return to Perth to fly home. Anyway I will think about it.

Aussie farmer

I still buy mine from the church Op Shop. It costs me a dollar which I call rent as I return them so they can be sold again. I have also joined the library, as I still drive figure I only have to carry them into the house. I haven't borrowed any yet but will soon. Usually I stockpile them for winter but didn't this year as I got busy with other things. My day is housework, shopping, reading, crocheting and gardening if the weather is reasonable. So I keep busy.

Dirt road

Change trains

I have several friends in Perth. One I met on here although I met her on Dementia.net when that was active, one from my life locally. So next time I can stay in Perth for a couple of days in a hotel and catch up with them I hope It is a new adventure for me. It's good in a way to have somewhere new to go but I miss my family so much on days like Mother's Day and my birthday which comes up in a few weeks time.

Asha, it is very hot in summer there and is such a long way from the rest of my family. I do a lot of work in my church locally so it would be a big wrench to leave here. But it was great to be with them.

I have just come back from visiting my daughter and her husband and daughter in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. To get there it is taking two trains to Sydney and then out to the airport then a four hour flight from one side of Australia to the other, from Sydney to Perth, over 2000 kms. Then after an hours wait taking an hours flight to Kalgoorlie, 335 kms inland from Perth. Kalgoorlie is a mining town and Kalgoorlie - Boulder is the city made by combining two small towns both built on a gold discovery. There is still a deep open cut working gold mine there. Shirley and Craig are in charge of the Salvation Army there. There is a large open plan building somewhat past its prime consisting of a church and hall and shower and laundry facilities. it is very busy due to being the host for Second Bite, the distribution of food that has reached its use by date from Coles, one of our major supermarkets. So each morning they collect bread, sometimes meat and miscellaneous groceries, set them up in their church hall and members of the public come and take what they need. There are some restrictions on how much they take but some stay a while as there is also tea and coffee making facilities, hot soup and extra pies and mini pizzas donated by a local bakery. The actual congregation is small but volunteers help to fill out the workforce. A handful of mostly older people stop by each day for morning tea and form a loose senior group. In a city that is both very rich and very poor available social centres such as this are very important. Isolation is a real problem in the small western towns and cities. A lot of people are struggling with rising food prices and higher rents so food distribution is important. Unfortunately this service takes three or four hours of Shirley and Craigs time every week day. I was able to help in a limited way, I am very good at packing goods into a refrigerator now. We did get some time together but not as much as planned. There was a Kids Festival for the last weekend of the school holidays which included a pop up Ice Skating rink the first weekend and the Salvation Army was asked to staff the Lost Children's tent. I have all the qualifications and paperwork so I was able to help with that too, Shirley and I on Saturday morning and Naomi and I on Sunday morning. The Council gave a "donation" to the Youth Shed the Salvation Army run for our services. During the week I helped out with the food etc but did manage some free time. The landscaping of Kalgoorlie, red dust country, reminded me very much of Broken Hill but it is far more prosperous. Thanks to the rising price of gold I guess there are far better facilities, shopping centres etc. It is always strange for a few days when I come back home to an empty house after being with family. I listen to the quiet sounds of night and long for the days when there were family sit-down meals and laughter around the table. I miss Craig's cooking and Shirley and Naomi's voices calling to one another room to room. I miss their cat Ash snuggling on my knee. I wouldn't want to live permanently with family but it is so good to be with them for a time, however brief that time is. I was lucky to be able to do that.

No amount of aloneness is long if your someone special comes home to you. A certain amount of aloneness is good for you. I'm glad you have come to that realisation now. Ray in part of his working life was away three days at a time, I didn't like that at first but realised that meant that the children and I could eat different food at different times, make a lot more noise and do other activities without him being there and that was okay. Having some time of quietness and your own choice of movies is also good. Congratulations on your perceptiveness.

So good that your Mom recovered so much and that her anger left, I hope she continues to improve. You have always been open to new ideas and that's benefitted you and all of us who have read your blogs. Congratulations to your son, I hope his residency goes well.

Thanks for the update George, you and Lesley have made great use of your time. I'm glad Lesley got back to New Zealand. Sorry to hear about her son's breakup, very sad, but looks like it has led to new opportunities for him. Keep on going , improving and keeping busy. Golf! Who would have thought that you'd be able to go back to golf back in those early days? Great job!

It's a great read George, you and Lesley have been very busy. Great to see you fulfilling some of your dreams.

Just about to go into autumn here. I will be glad to see the end of summer, I haven't enjoyed summer this year, far too hot and humid and with the heavy waist to toe elastic stockings it's been soooo hard to combat the heat. I am glad the cooler weather is on its way but will miss daylight saving. I've enjoyed sitting on the verandah watching the light fade away in the evening in the last few weeks and the sudden silence when traffic dies down and the local commuters are all home at last. Peaceful. The social activities have accelerated in the past couple of months, it is in February that meetings and meet ups get more urgent. I've caught up with older friends for lunch including one of my sister-in-laws and a couple of school friends. Unfortunately with ones I haven't seen for a while I have noticed the ageing since I saw them last and they probably noticed the same in me. I've almost lost the five kilos the physio asked me to lose so I am thinner in the face, not a good look as you age. Went to a High Tea at one of our bigger resort hotels last Saturday with the Stroke group WAGS. It was a lovely time of fellowship and a good time was had by most but I managed to eat something that didn't fit in with my allergy list and suffered for it. It is my fault, if I think it's possibly not something I could eat and get away with I should NOT eat it. My bad. Even at my age I yearn to be able to eat all those luscious, gooey, sugary desserts but one little tiny, delicious, caramelly sliver of slice can just be the tipping point. It was supposed to be dairy free but I doubt it. It was nice to get together with my Stroke Survivor friends and their caregivers. A couple of the widowed men bring a paid carer along to help them with toileting etc and they have become part of the group. I still go as often as I can to the monthly meetings as these people are a big part of my friendship group as are the people on here. I move forward but where possible I hang on to the friends I made during my time caring for Ray. They are precious to me. I am planning a couple of short trips before winter closes in on me. One will be just an overnight in Sydney. Probably in the hotel I was in on the way to Canberra as that is quite pleasant and close to Central Station. I don't want to have to drag that suitcase too far. I can stay away a night or two, no pets and in winter the garden doesn't need watering as often. It is time I visited the city and browsed around the shops or looked at an Art Gallery or two. Can't become too much of a country bumpkin can I? If you are reading this and haven't updated your blog for a while it would be good if you could do do. Otherwise I am a Blog Moderator with no blogs to moderate.