What a week!
| It was good to see Mum and see for myself how she was as she does not always tell all as with a phone conversation to Chris over the phone while I was there, telling her she was fine and o.k. o.k. my foot.... The past week seems like a fortnight now that I am home, I feel as if I have been away for ages. Luckily Gerard had to come to Melbourne also to pick up "Harry Holden" from the panel beaters as he was having a make over or should I say a new coat of paint, some rust taken out and now looks like new again, I think Gerard said he is 43 years old. an old EJ Holden! So he lugged the telly up the stairs for me and then struggled down the stairs with the no good telly, thank goodness otherwise I don't know what I would have done. We did not stay long at Mum's then as we then went to Rowville and met Kate for lunch and then went to pick up "Harry", before Gerard then had the three and a half hours drive back home, well longer in Harry as he does not go as fast as modern cars!! lol... or is it that Gerard does not want to push him to make him last even longer... anyway... I then went onto Little Bits for our monthly ATC night and got to Mum's about 9.45pm. First priority was to look at the fridge only to find that the fridge part was at room temp and the freezer was over freezing with all that soft frost everywhere and this is what you call a "frost free" fridge and freezer?? Moved a few dials around and still no change in either, Just have to wait til morning. No wonder Mum's food had been going off for the past two weeks, she did not realise the fridge was off.. pardon the pun.. She was just so overwhelmed with the telly and the freezer and her physical state she could not think rationally which sounds awful I know. So it is now Thursday and after making a few phone calls and get told the same as Mum and Wendy my sister in law that no one is available til the 18th January to come out and have a look, which is still over a week away, finally got through to them and they sent out a man on the saturday, thank goodness, poor Mum was going crazy it was stressing her to the max. Well once again to cut a long story short and in simple terms, a switch was not working to tell the fridge to defrost the freezer every eight hours so the tank where the water goes when defrosting was turning into a hard block of ice and not letting the fridge cool also! get it??? well the next thing was he replaced the switch and then told us to turn the thing off for two days to get the block of ice at the back to defrost and then turn on again and all should be good. WELL....... hmmmmmm, says Mum in a little voice "so you will come back and check it then and turn it on???" Oh no says the man you can do that it will be fine, just ring if any problems!!!! What about the block of ice where will the water go, "Oh just put a towel on the floor, there won't be much water!" Two days turning off the fridge to defrost the block of ice and there won't be much water??? Mum's face told it all, absolute horror. All she could think of was the water running all over the floor. Well as it turned out there was not much water leakage, about a mug full as we put a pot under where there was water dripping. Must have evaporated somehow, with no power... You tell me. Mum could not let it go which is understandable she was so worried. She had has so many sleepless nights worrying about the fridge motor running all the time and not shutting down for a rest. she is rather paranoid about electricity more so than others would be. Anyway two more days without being able to go to the fridge for food and for me no cold water, finally turned it on and hey presto it works!!!!! The dilemma of course was that we had five days of having to go out for meals and each day buying fresh food as it would go off otherwise as we were also going through such awful hot weather which was not needed at that point in time. Poor Mum she was frightened to touch anything, she felt like she had made the wrong decision in moving and everything was jinxed. She did not want to use the washing machine until I was there to again re assure her that the noises it was making was normal. I have just remembered she wanted to use her new rice cooker with me there for the first time just in case something happened also. She is frightened to move.. As if that was all to get through, we head off in this goddamn awful heat, I just lurve the heat, to the council office to get some parking permits as the parking has changed outside the units and because her pension card does not have her new addy on it nothing can be done! BUT while there I bit the bullet and asked about home care and also someone to take Mum shopping and yep we had an interview with a lady and she is now on a waiting list for assistance. When it finally comes through it will be wonderful cause Mum won't have a long list of things for us to do and it will be a little more relaxed for both of us even if it is once a fortnight she will be able to get a few things done in between times and it will be good for her to have some other company too. I had rung Centrelink to find out if we could change Mum's addy over the phone and the guy said no she will have to go in.. damn what a hassle I hate going to Prahran cause the parking is a problem and Mum cannot walk far, so it looks like a taxi job in this rotten heat. I decided to ring and check if we needed to make an appointment to come in and the lady said she could fix it all over the phone!!! am I going mad or what???? So job done and now waiting for her new pension card to arrive (3 to 10 working days) then off to the town hall again and the other places we need to prove change of addy. |
You would think it would be a simple thing to just swap over tellys?????? Mum had forgotten when her new telly arrived that it needed to be tuned in, she is forgetting a lot of stuff these days.. anyway of course the replacement telly had to be tuned didn't it?? So of course where are the instructions?? who knows so after spending a couple of hours fiddling and finally working out how to tune it, my fingers and thumbs were so sore I could hardly move them with all the pressing of the button. The frequency or whatever the lingo is, is different in the country to the city and I ended up spending hours waiting for the little green lines to appear across the bottom of the screen, fill up and then start again. So to save time the channels are all over the place to add more confusion for Mum, but at least she has the channels written on the back of the remote and she has a telly and a good picture.
We bought Mum a DVD player for Christmas as she has often commented on wanting to be able to watch some films. After the saga of a video player I had been putting off encouraging Mum to get one as she got so confused with it and ended up selling it as she was too confused with working it. Anyway after much thought I got one for her, and one for me in the Palace as they were a good buy. Mine was playing up though and I had second thoughts on giving the other one to her, but took it to her anyway, she was rapt! Kate and Matt bought her a DVD of Queen live in concert, she loves the group and was rapt and I brought down Gone with the wind and Doctor Zhivago to see, brand new discs and everything was fine, so I was relieved, I got the dud machine. But nup the Queen DVD started playing up so Doctor Zhiv was the next one to try. We sat down and 13 minutes into the movie, it starts playing up. Buggar!!!! Nup it wasn't behaving either, checked it out with the other new DVD, nup the same, plugged the player into Maggies telly and it was the same. So back in the box it went and back with me to return with mine! Disappointing for Mum another electrical thing gone wrong!
For the first two days of my arrival we went out to do things and Mum was so tired as I forgot for a moment that she had not been out for two weeks, her feet started swelling once again as she had been on them for some time and she was stuffed.... We had a so called rest day on Saturday waiting for the fridge man to arrive. I encouraged Mum to go down the stairs by her self to go see Jean one of the ladies who also had a fall as she had not been down the stairs yet by herself and she had made the comment she felt all dizzy and shakey when she opened the door and walked outside. So after the second time going out there, I asked if it was better now going out the door and she replied NO!! She does not like heights and that is why she feels funny!!!!!! SHIT!!! why take a first floor unit???? Desperation to get back to the city. She had made up her mind to go and would take upstairs if she had to!
So the fridge was a goer now and I had planned to leave on the wednesday, Mum had a doctors appointment on the Tuesday and had to stay in until she came, did not know roughly what time as she did not bother to write it down, cause it did not matter she was going no where that day! So we stayed in waiting for the doctor. I had rung Coles to find out what the latest time was to have a home delivery and it was 3.30pm, sdo usually the doctor comes late morning, so plenty of time to do a shop! I managed to get Mum to do some craft work instead of just sitting there waiting and doing nothing and by 2pm I said to Mum that if she does not come soon, we won't be able to get the shopping done in time, would they ring you if she could not come? Don't know was the reply, have you checked the date? not trying to make her sound forgetful.. Oh yes it is today, we just have to wait she must be delayed. Did you write the date down? Yes it is on the calendar. hhhmmmmm... Yep it was there on the month of december. Dr Jan 17th early arvo.. It was the 16th today!!! we have waited in all day for nothing, oh well we did get some craft stuff done though. Too late to go and shop and it was so hot again anyway. So not going home tomorrow now, have to get up early, still hot, sleep deprived, ended up sleeping on the doona as mum has flannelette sheets only and I get hot.. and off to the supermarket in the morning, we were there for over two hours in the supermarket getting mum's shop, organising home delivery and then rush back for the doctor.. too hot and late to go home now..
Doc checks her over and says she needs time to recover as she has had a hard knock.
I don't want to get any older I have decided, lold age is cruel, here is a person who was an intelligent young woman, secretary to some top executive in London, got married, her new hubby gone off to war, left to have her first child and bring him up for almost five years by herself, hubby comes back, falls pregnant, finds out her husband is unfaithful while at war and when back from it, travels to Australia by ship by herself with my brother 9 and sick sister 4 for I think it was 6 weeks to meet dad here in Melbourne and to find they are to live in a tiny caravan!! What a great start to a new life. Falls pregnant again with me this time and struggles to bring us up while being an Air Force wife. Five years later she has my sister Chris, and has managed to bring us all up with dad not around much as he did a lot of shift work and only came home once a week as we lived too far from his work for him to come home each day.
We were posted to Malaya for two and a half years and once again Dad went there before us and Mum had to organise all the packing and getting us there safely. My brother did not come as he had just started an apprenticeship with the PMG and could not come as there was no work available there. It was one of the hardest decisions Mum had to make to leave her son behind and not see him for those two and a half years, I know she never got over that heartbreaking decision, he must have been about 17 I think at the time. I am not sure as I am not good at remembering numbers! Mum also ran a very successful craft shop for some years and also did many other ventures, ran her own ceramic studio, sold ceramics, sold hobbytex and artex.
Dad got a posting to Laverton and once again he went on ahead and Mum had to organise everything once again. Whikle living there Mum went out to work in the city working for AMP for some time. We then moved again back to good old Mount Evelyn, Dad eventually got out of the air force and bought a milk bar. So Mum spent all her time working in the Milk Bar for several years. Moved house again and again, that is where we reckon she is a gypsy. Also carrying the burden that Dad was not at all faithful to her for so many years, but did not feel she could leave as her children were so important to her and so she sacrificed so much for us and wanting to keep us all together as a family.
So from doing all that bringing us four up, to now forgetting things, being helpless at times, confused, unsure of herself, needing help filling out forms etc etc it is just so sad and not only frustrating for me but for her as she knows sometimes what she is like and other times she doesn't. They say patience is a virtue.. well it has been trying me out for some time now. I love mum dearly and it hurts to see her changing so much. She brought me up and looked after me and now the roles are reversed, at times she is the child and I am looking after her.
Well once again I have rambled on way too much as usual, but hey I had so much to tell.
talk again soon bye for now.. xxx
posted by Jill @ 5:51 am
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