Stella's out of lockdown. And we have been clearing out her place at Mount Martha

I was at work on Thursday when I got a phone call from a very excited Stella to say that she had finally been let out of jail - I mean lockdown. No further active covid cases in the facility meant that the residents were allowed out of their rooms, allowed visitors, and allowed to leave the facility.

Lindsey was not at work on Thursday and pretty much immediately went around to visit her.

The easing of the lockdown was good news because she had a GP appointment on Friday morning. She would have been allowed to go to her medical appointment but it might have been more awkward to take her out to lunch as well.  No worries, if the lockdown has been lifted. And that is what we did.

Her GP appointment was at 11:00 in Buninyong so we had ample time to consider where to go to lunch. In the event, we went to the cafe in Mount Clear opposite the IGA. I've eaten in there a couple of times, plus I've popped in for takeaway a few time. I don't know why we don't go there more often. It's convenient. It has a lovely atmosphere. The staff are delightful and the food is more than acceptable. And it's no distance at all from the Mount Clear Aged Care Facility.

Stella, properly rugged up against the cold.
Out of her Room At Last!

I took Stella home and then dropped in to see how Jim was getting along. He was very pleased to see me - for probably five minutes! He was in his room watching TV and wasn't going to be distracted from that 😂  He did stir himself to eat the jelly slice I had brought him. I didn't stay long. I'll go back today and see what he needs, plus I've got some extra clothes and some knickknacks to take in - once I've assessed how much room he has. He seems well enough, although his beard is beginning to look extremely unkempt. I'll have to take Lindsey and her hair shearing blades in with me for a nice trim.

Stella's social whirl continued on Sunday. Freyja and Simon picked her up at lunchtime and took her up to Rupert and Hugo's place where they were joined by Julia and her lot. Ian cooked them a magnificent Sunday lunch and, as far as I can tell, a good time was had by all.

Rupert enjoying a visit from Grandma Stella.
Photo courtesy Ian

In the meantime, Lindsey and I went to work on Saturday morning and then trundled down to Mount Martha where we made a sturdy start on clearing out the house ready for it to be put on the market. We need to get a wriggle on with this if only because Stella is paying all the fees at the aged care facility plus, of course, she is still paying all the fees and costs of having a house in a retirement village. This is financially unsustainable when you don't have double the income.

So Lindsey got lots of moving boxes and we have cleared out the main bathroom and Stella' bedroom, plus we packed up boxes of things to go to charity and started piling up more things for charity in the corner. There isn't a lot left to do in the lounge room and dining room, although we haven't properly touched the kitchen or the spare room.  Or, now I come to think about it, the garage although most of the stuff in there is probably headed for a skip.

And then there is the study. Strong and brave hearted people go into the study armed with courage and determination. Then they come over all peculiar and have to be revived with smelling salts and recuperate on the fainting couch for several hours. I think we have decided to leave it until last and have several people go in at the same time to tackle it. Or, we could simply put everything into big plastic boxes and move it to Hill House and hide it all in the shed - and hope that the mice, rats and possums will deal with the problem for us.

We are hoping to complete the clearing out of the house in the mid-September school holidays, ready for the retirement village to do all the things they will want to do before putting it on the market.  I understand there is high demand for places in that retirement village so fingers crossed it will sell quickly.

My place is nearly ready for me to die, become incapacitated or move out. Apart, that is, from the garage, which I hadn't really though about until yesterday. I must tackle that, as soon as Brother Matthew has been and taken whatever he wants from it.

Lindsey and I decided at midday that we had had enough of playing the Moving Out game and went to the Dava for lunch. 

Then we headed back home, calling in at Tully's as we went past. The Pretty Kitty Kats were very pleased to see me. Rupert and Hugo weren't quite as excited to see Lindsey. They had had lots of visitors during the day and had had a very good time. Hugo was quite pleased when Lindsey dropped a tub of Tully's lovely minestrone soup on the floor in the kitchen. Rupert wasn't quite as excited until someone scraped some of it into a bowl for him. Hugo has no such sensibilities. He's more than happy to clean up delicious soup straight from the floor.

Photo courtesy Ian

East Melbourne

The last time I can remember being in the City of Melbourne, apart from passing through it to get somewhere else, was in February 2020, just before Jim and I headed off to England. I still haven't got into the CBD, but I have made it as far as East Melbourne.

I like East Melbourne.

We are definitely short of receptionists at work at the moment. One is off on her Grand World tour. Two are off with covid. And one has a funeral to go to and asked if I could cover her today. So I came down to work yesterday and stayed over in Lindsey and Ian's flat. It was ridiculously exciting getting into the car after work and heading into town instead of to Ballarat.

They've made some changes in the flat since I was last here. New flooring. A new, fancy pants fold down bed, new chairs, that sort of thing. But the view from the balcony hasn't changed:

I wandered up Smith Street and met Freyja and Simon in the Kinyoubi Izakaya for dinner. A tapas-style Japanese feast. I asked for a bowl of karaage chicken, among the other treats. I won't do that again if I am the only omnivore present. The chicken was very delicious but I was the only one who could eat it, which meant I couldn't properly sample the other bowls. It was all very delicious and a lovely evening.

And now I had better get myself organised for the day. It's been rather nice not having to dash about to get ready to leave (by about now, when coming from Mount Helen) but it is all too easy to potter about and forget about the time all together!

And I must make the time to come to Melbourne City more often. Two and a half years between visits is ridiculous, even allowing for plague, pandemics and other impediments

Garden

I got out into the garden yesterday afternoon and carried on putting together the new fruit beds along the back fence

(I still have terrible trouble working out what to call the fences; they don't make logical sense, to me, for "front" "side" and "back" but nevertheless, that is what I am going to call them!)

I have almost run out of the wooden raised bed kits but have enough, I think, to finish the bed along the back and to make a start one the next one. I've also started tidying up in the vegetable area - not that you can tell, looking at it as it is now!

It's another lovely day today, so I might get chance to do a bit more.

Fruit bed has gooseberry and black currant bushes in,
with lemon trees at either end.
Rhubarb and blueberries still to go in.

This is the chaos which was once a functioning
vegetable garden.
It will function again. I hope!

I have also pruned the rosemary bush out the front, and some of the wattle which overhangs the fruit bed (I need to do a bit more of that, plus the eucalypts which overhang the side fence and some of the bushes out the front). This has garnered me some things to put in my vases:

Oh - and I've pushed the TV back on the diagonal in the corner of the lounge room. Having it flat against the wall unbalanced the room. And I could only see it from one seat. Where it is now I can see it from both couches and from the dining room. And it looks better!

 

Busy (Being Busy!)

I've actually been quite busy recently.

One of the receptionists at work has taken advantage of the increasingly restriction free re-opening of the international borders and has taken off on a Grand World Tour. Unfortunately, just as she did this, one of the other receptionists became quite unwell with covid. She had to go to hospital in an ambulance and was still not well a few days later. So in addition to working for an extra hour or two on Wednesday, I found myself tripping down memory lane - and heading into work with Lindsey on Friday.

Fortunately, it wasn't too busy on Friday because there weren't many doctors on and none of the allied health people were in. It was a long day, though.

And allow me to draw your attention to: When I tell you that there are no appointments available, it will avail you precisely nothing to tell me that "I've been coming there since 1965" or "I've been loyally coming  for 20 years". If I had an appointment to offer you, I would have offered it. The fact that you have been coming for umpty something years doesn't magically conjure one up! And if you tell me your name, I will call you if we get a cancellation. I can't do that if you just huff and hang up.

I'm working some extra hours this week too. One of the advantages of Jim being in the care home - I can offer to cover shifts if necessary, plus I can choose to go and work on site rather than from home if I feel like it. 

Stella is not a happy bunny. She was given the August calendar of activities for the facility and last week was marked off as Locked Down, with activities resuming on Sunday. She therefore assumed that if nothing else they would be allowed out of their rooms to mingle in the common areas and the dining room, despite us warning her that it would be entirely dependent on there being no active cases. Alas, there are still a small number of active cases and they remain confined to their rooms for now. And realistically, they were never going to open the doors to outside visitors on a Sunday. Can you imagine the rush of people wanting to get in, being dealt with by the single receptionist they have on a Sunday? I don't think it will be long, though. Case numbers do seem to be dropping quite nicely.

I have called at the aged care facility, to drop things off for Stella and a few things for Jim. A member of staff comes to the door and collects them. I speak to Stella every day, and to Jim once or twice a week. Both of them have recovered from their covid bouts, although Stella is still a bit snuffly and sneezy. I will be pleased when I can get back in again. I have lots of things to take in, including book shelves and other larger things. Plus, Stella has an appointment with her GP on Friday. It will be useful if I can get her out of the facility by then.

Apart from all that, things are trundling nicely along. I am carrying on with the Death Cleaning and also with general decluttering. Lindsey and I went to the Bridge Mall market and the mushroom farm on Saturday. I am slowly learning not to peel too many potatoes. I am building a pattern of daily life, although I need to remember that I will need to include regular visits to Stella and Jim when they open up again.

Spring is approaching. The wattles are beginning to flower. I see spring bulbs appearing in people's gardens. The days are slowly, slowly starting to get longer - which means I really need to get a wriggle on with sorting out the new fruit beds in the back garden. The soil is still quite cold but it won't be long before it starts to warm up. And I have been sorting out my vegetable seeds. Lindsey and Ian gave me a seed heat mat at Christmas and I am pondering making an experimental early start on the summer seeds, just to see what happens. I need to take some of my metal beds up to Lindsey's place. We are planning a new vegetable area up there too.

Busy doing Not Very Much

It's funny, you know. Most days there is absolutely nothing stopping me doing whatever I want to do. I can hop in the car, hop on a bus, hop on a train and go anywhere I choose. Nobody is likely to query it. I still can't go to the care home but other than that ...

In fact, I consider the possibility of going somewhere - and decide to stay at home. It's not even as though I'm being particularly busy at home. My poor gardens are looking very sorry for themselves, though that shouldn't take long to fix.

It is true that I need to be a bit careful with money at the moment. I now have Jim's care home fees to pay, plus the last (I hope!) lot of the home care fees and the exit fee. I *knew* that I should have held off with the home care package. I had a strong suspicion that Jim wouldn't be at home for much longer but hoped that the care package might mean he could stay at home for a few more weeks or months.  I should have listened to my intuition! It will all settle down in the next month or two but in the meantime I need to pay attention to the outgoings.

This would not, really, stop me going out!

And I did go out. I went to Mount Martha on Sunday, taking Lindsey's car which is much larger than mine. I am very aware that Stella's unit is going to take a lot of clearing out before she can put it on the market. Plus, there are some precious things that Stella would like to have in her room, but which she worries will get broken if they are kept there. So, she decided, they could come to my place and she can look at them when the facility comes out of lockdown and she can come to visit. I felt that if someone went every week or so and put in a couple of hours of clearing out, when we come to do the big clear up it might not be quite as daunting.

So I have cleared out and turned off the fridge freezer in the kitchen. I have made a substantial start on clearing out the pantry. I have brought some, but not quite all, of the precious things to my place. I have also brought the in-date contents of the fridge, freezer and pantry to my place. And a couple of occasional tables.

This meant that I had to turn back on my freezer in the garage, which I had only just cleared out. And I have had to rearrange the furniture in my lounge room to accommodate the precious things. While I was about it, I did a proper deep clean. Dusting, cleaning the window sills and skirting boards, vacuuming the floor edges. And, of course, the carpet.

This is how the lounge room looked yesterday evening:

The TV is no longer the focal point of the lounge room. In fact, you can only watch it from "Jim's" couch. This is no bad thing. I don't usually have it on when there are visitors and it means that I now have a "reading" couch and a "TV" couch. And the cats have all the couches :D

This was my view from my bed yesterday morning. I was, unusually for me, enjoying an early morning cup of tea in my bed:

They won't sit on me when I am sitting on a chair or couch. No such inhibition when I am sitting or lying in the bed!

Covid

So now both Jim and Stella have tested positive for covid. 

I can't talk to Jim directly all that often. He managed to disable his phone again and I have decommissioned it. He had more or less stopped using it anyway and it didn't seem worth getting it fixed just for him to disable it again. I can organise to speak to him on the nurses' phone, which I do once or twice a week. Briefly, it must be said. But the nurses tell me that he isn't too bad. He is as vaccinated as it is possible to be, plus they got him onto antiviral medication very quickly and they say he seems cheerful enough.

I can speak to Stella directly. She has her phone with her and uses it. She says she isn't feeling all that well, but is not feeling as though she has a particularly dreadful illness. She says she feels tired, not hungry and under the weather, but not absolutely awful. She too is fully vaccinated and has just started on the antiviral medication. So fingers crossed for both of them. Although Stella is unimpressed that she has obediently stayed in her room since they were locked down and still the virus managed to sneak its way in!

I have observed before that one of the significant advantages of owning rather than renting a place is that you do not get six monthly visits from estate agents wanting to check on the state of your home. This is also a significant disadvantage.  There is no regular incentive to deep clean and tidy up. I have recently discovered that this is also true of visits from district nurses and carers. On the days that they were expected I would run the vacuum cleaner round, sweep the dining room and kitchen floors and tidy things up. Now that they don't come anymore, I don't think about the floors until I look at them closely and realise just how many crumbs there are and how much cat hair is on the carpet. Tidying isn't such a bother - I tend not to have too much stuff lying about, unless it is in a room that I am clearing out. (Don't venture into the study at the moment!!)

Mind you - I accidentally swept under my bed at Hill House this morning. I used a broom to fish out a slipper which was lurking out of reach under the bed and swept out a surprising number of other things and a startling amount of dust, debris and Great Dane hair. Then, of course, I had to properly sweep under the bed which meant I also had to do the rest of the bedroom floor. Perhaps I should organise some sort of inspection of that room every six months or so! I now have three pairs of slippers (when I started this enterprise I had three slippers; I wasn't expecting to get another three). Bizarrely, I now have three thongs/flipflops. I have no idea at all where the fourth one is. I had completely forgotten there was supposed to be another pair. 

I suppose now I should look under my bed at home and see what's under that. Or might that be a Bad Plan?

Hugo was behaving very oddly when I got up here on Sunday afternoon. He was standing in the hallway, refusing to come into the lounge room. Then he went outside and flatly refused to come back in again. He would not come in through the laundry door. I rang Lindsey, who was on her way to a birthday party in Melbourne. She said he had been doing that during the morning and she had enticed him into the lounge room with a packet of cheezels. I had already tried chicken and cheese but hadn't though of cheezels. Even with cheezels, he would not come in through the laundry door. I managed to get him in through the outside door up in the visitors' wing. Then more cheezels to get him into the lounge room. Plus, of course, Rupert expected to get his fair share of cheezels, if Hugo was having them.

I don't know what had spooked Hugo so much. He was behaving in very much the way that he did when he and Rupert were puppies and Rupert had done something so egregiously awful that Hugo was expecting them both to be yelled at. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see any evidence of extremely bad behaviour. I wonder if something had fallen on him, or near him. He doesn't like it when things fall on him or near him and there are lots of things in the laundry and by the laundry door which might have spooked him. He's back to his old self now. Tail wagging, playing with squeaky toys, delighted by the discovery of long forgotten squeaky toys hiding under my bed. His appetite had not been affected, which suggested that he was spooked and not sick.

There are no more cheezels at Rupert and Hugo's house. Just cheese twisties. I suspect they would also do as an enticement.

Uh oh!

The care facility has been invaded by Covid!!!

They had a Covid outbreak last January. I had Jim booked in for a few days so I could go to Marlo but they were locked down so he couldn't go in and I couldn't go to Marlo. I went in May instead. Since then they've had the odd case here and there, among residents and staff, but have managed to keep it all under control.

On Thursday, Stella mentioned that they had a couple of cases in  the facility . On Friday it was 4. By yesterday it was 27,  among both residents and staff. Once again the facility is locked down. They can't come out and we can't go in. Bugger!

Stella is unimpressed but at least understands what is happening and why locking down and keeping the residents in their rooms is a plan. Also, she has a phone and so has access to the outside world. Poor Jim has no phone (he broke his last one and in any case has increasingly found it hard to use) and I don't know if he remembers that he was supposed to be coming out for lunch yesterday. But the facility does have a process where they can organise phone calls for residents so I'll organise that. 

I have things to take in for both of them (shelves and pictures and stuff) but there's no real hurry for that. Next week will do, or whenever they let us back in. But I did find myself with three pieces of salmon yesterday and only me to eat them. I couldn't put them in the freezer - I had only just defrosted them. Fortunately I hadn't opened the tin of mushy peas I was going to give Stella and Jim. They both lerv mushy peas. I am definitely not a fan. The mushy peas have gone back in the pantry. I also hadn't peeled any potatoes for the roasties I was going to make and I hadn't sorted out the rest of the veg. I was going to do all that when I had brought Stella and Jim to the house. Potatoes and vegetables are patiently waiting for me to get around to using them during the week.

I had salmon with noodles and teriyaki vegetables yesterday. I had salmon for breakfast today (you wouldn't think it odd if I said I had smoked salmon on toast for breakfast so I can't see why I shouldn't have fresh salmon if I am minded). And Rupert and Hugo dogfully volunteered to eat the third piece. With some toast, please.

It's not just Mount Clear. Covid is running rampant through Aged Care facilities around Australia. Fortunately, most residents are fully vaccinated and the staff have to be. Come to that, visitors have to be vaccinated as well, in Victoria and NSW. Not sure about the other states. They PCR tested everyone on Saturday. I am hopeful that now they have noticed the virus they may halt its progress.

Thursday

I took Jim into the residential aged care facility in Mount Clear on Thursday. His dementia has become noticeably worse recently and his behaviour has become somewhat erratic. Not violent, but confused, particularly first thing in the morning. He would get up and start rushing about because he had to catch the bus to work, or go to the football (by bus!) in Southampton, or go somewhere else by bus. I'm not sure why the buses. He hasn't ever been a regular commuter by bus. 

I was beginning to feel as though I was living in a TS Eliot poem. Not a specific poem - just the sense of wandering about in the rain wearing a grey coat and popping into greasy spoon cafes and drinking poorly made tea. And catching buses (do they catch buses in TS Eliot's world?) It was quite hard persuading him that running out into the early morning light, in the drizzly rain and cold was not a good plan. ("Oh dear; you've missed the football - they've just blown the final whistle" "Going to work? But it's Sunday. You don't work on Sundays") I was also beginning to worry about leaving him at home alone when I went out, and I have to go out sometimes.

He was going to go in for another fortnight's respite but I decided that it would be better if he just went in as a permanent resident, for continuity and consistency. He can come home or go out for lunch or afternoon tea or whatever when (my) time and the weather permit. With Stella, who is in the same facility but not in the memory unit. There is nothing wrong with Stella's memory.

He was asleep when I called in on Friday and wasn't much inclined to chat when I woke him up. He was more alert this afternoon and seemed cheery enough. I am up at Rupert and Hugo's place  this weekend, while Lindsey and Ian are away. I am planning to bring both Jim and Stella up here tomorrow for lunch. Getting them both here without the assistance of another able-bodied responsible adult may be a challenge, but we'll give it a go.

Mount Martha

This weekend might have been the last time Stella was in Mount Martha. I think it likely that Lindsey and I will be there again, possibly also Matthew. There is a LOT of sorting, tidying and organising of the house to be done before it can go on the market. There is stuff absolutely everywhere!

We did our best over the weekend. Lindsey took Stella down on Saturday and they stayed overnight. Jim and I went on Sunday morning, as did Matthew. Freyja and Simon joined us at the Dava for what might have been our last Sunday lunch there. We all went back to the house and filled our cars with things that Stella wants in her room in Mount Clear, things that we want (or don't particularly want but were prevailed upon to take!) and papers that need sorting out.

This didn't seem to make much of a dint in the Stuff! I found a bundle of receipts kept by my father and all clipped together, from supermarket shops, Dava lunches, various other things, dating back years and years. I'm not sure why he had this obsession with keeping receipts for absolutely everything. When he died I found the itemised lists of supermarket deliveries dating back years. I threw them away, just as yesterday I threw away the bundle of faded receipts. It is possible that I err the opposite way - I almost never keep receipts unless I need them for proof of warranty on very expensive items. I don't buy very many hugely expensive items! And I can't remember many, or indeed any, occasions when I have wished that I had kept a receipt.

Anyway. There is a great deal of clearing, organising and furniture moving to be done. I must keep up the "death cleaning" of our place, and particularly the study. Tony's study was always immaculate until he got sick. Since then, and especially since he died, it has become more and more dishevelled and in recent times has become something of a dumping ground. I would not want my study to induce the same level of heart sinking after my death or incapacity.

I think we are going to need a large skip at some point. Or two. Or more.

Sunday lunch at the Dava:

I was there too!

A significant advantage of having Stella a mere 5 minute drive away in Mount Clear is that, when I ring her on a Sunday morning and tell her that I am making a chicken and vegetable stew with roasties for lunch and would she like to join us - she can. I went and picked her up. We had a lovely lunch. I took her back. Almost no effort at all

Things have been trundling along much as usual. Lindsey and I have been to the markets on Saturdays and then out to the mushroom farm. There weren't as many stalls yesterday at Zoo Drive, although there were a lot of people there. Not bad, considering it had been foggy and misty and drizzly in the morning. We didn't really need anything much but it was nice to have a potter around outside.

I am hoping for a few dry days this coming week. I really need to get back out into the back garden and get the new garden beds sorted out. I did get into the front veg beds in between showers yesterday and pull most of the grass out. The peas and broad beans are growing happily. I could do to put wire up so they don't get blown over as they grow. I've mad a start on chopping back one of the bushes along the side fence along the driveway. I need to finish that one, tackle the other two (on of which is REALLY overgrown) and sort out the horrible agapanthus which are attempting to take over the whole known universe. One day, in the far, far future, when I have a bit of spare cash, I'm going to get someone with a Machine to dig them out. But I have other things to do first. I want to get the gas stove removed. I would like to get a new front door. I wouldn't mind some more solar lights in the hallway and lounge room. The list of things I would quite like to do is quite long.

Lindsey has taken Stella back to her place in Mount Martha this weekend, so she can decide which things she would like to take with her to Mount Clear and say goodbye to her neighbours. We will head down in an hour or so and join them and various other people for (a probably final) lunch in the Dava. a 2.5 hour drive, rather than a 5 minute drive! But I should perhaps get dressed first. They might look at me strangely if I go in my pyjamas and dressing gown!

I was quite please with this milestone on Drops:

A(nother) winter sunrise:

Brandy, plotting mischief:

Whiskey, sleeping at the wheel: