Memory for two

 I haven't been on here much this week and wanted you to know it's all because I'm going away next week and there's so much to do.  Far more in fact than I would have thought possible.  The Boy Wonder AKA Jake is coming for the week and, because I really don't want Ash to be at all stressed, anxious or upset, the whole thing is being planned with military precision.  Not only that, all that needs to be done to get ready for my trip has to be done without Ash realising and that takes some effort so there really hasn't been room in my head for much else. Ash knows Jake and the seven and a half year old are coming for a 'boys weekend' so he also knows I won't be here and that seems to be working fairly well so far.  What he doesn't know is that I won't be coming home on Monday but Jake and I have a story to cover that.  I could of course tell him the truth, and some of you may feel I should, but what would be the point?  He would be very, very a...

 Last week, as you know, ended badly.  Ash came to boiling point accusing me of taking over and leaving him with nothing to do and I made it all worse by failing to bear in mind that it was the dementia talking and not my lovely Ash of old.   We got over it and tiptoed round each other for a while but gradually things have returned to normal.  Or have they?  In fact life is better now than it has been for quite a while and this has set me thinking.   As usual I've consider the event from all angles and it's occurred to me that what happened last week has happened before in an almost identical manner.  There've been two or three difficult moments spread over two or three weeks and then one almighty row until, finally, I've seen flashes of the old Ash with his sense of humour and his laid back nature.  This time that's been here in spades.  He's come to find me and started conversations, he's taken my hand and, yesterday, I had my fir...

Today I decided to mow the field at the front of the house. When we moved here, nearly thirty six years ago, the field was a bit of a wasteland then Jake grew up a little and Ash mowed a wicket in the middle of the field so that he and his friends could play cricket.  Gradually that wicket got bigger and bigger until Ash decided to mow the whole field and he carried on with that for years and years and years, right up until dementia started to take hold and he often didn't notice the length of the grass.  At that point our lovely neighbours took over keeping it tidy, firstly pretending they were helping Ash but then just getting on and doing it.  That's been going on for three summers now and has worked brilliantly, Ash is happy the tradition of keeping the field tidy is carrying on, a younger generation is getting involved and he's been fine with it all. So I didn't need to do the mowing but I've being eyeing that space up, along with the church yard next door, for...

 It really isn't possible to keep me down for long and, although yesterday was a bit of a struggle, today I'm feeling much more like me again.   The recovery began with a two hour walk with friends in the wind and the rain.  I'd suggested we postpone the wet and windy walk and met for breakfast instead but they insisted we put our boots on and got out there and I'm very glad they did.  There really is nothing like running along in the bracing fresh air to catch up with those who have much longer legs than you to blow the blues away.  My mood took a downward dip in the afternoon and evening but then recovered after chats with a couple of friends in a similar situation to me.   This morning saw me out on another damp walk only this time with a different friend.  Got home to discover comment after comment and message after message from all you, everyone of them supportive and uplifting, and there I was riding high once again.  So high in fa...

 Yesterday I told you all, very excitedly and with great pride, how well the two long days with L had gone.  My careful planning had worked and we'd come through it all not only unscathed but with Ash in a better place than before.   Well I really should have known better because, about an hour after that piece was posted, all hell was let loose.  I've thought and thought about it all and still can't figure out what the trigger was but apparently I've taken all his jobs away from him and left him with nothing to do.  I'm managing and controlling and never allow him to think for himself and everything is my fault.   You have no need to tell me that it's the dementia talking, that he doesn't mean any of it and that he's just taking his uncertainties out on me;  I know all that and normally I keep my feelings under wraps and carry on while ignoring it all as best I can.  Where possible I manage to placate him and rebuild the self esteem tha...

 ......... seems to be working out.  The first step was to get outside carers involved so done that and learnt lessons along the way.  The biggest lesson of all has been that Ash is not the person I used to know and love so, consequently, I now have no idea what's best for him.  At the beginning of the carer search I was adamant that whoever it was had to be male and close to Ash's age because I knew that's the kind of person he'd relate to.  A friend who has far more experience of this than I do told me that I might be surprised but of course I knew better; only it turns out that I didn't and the carer who's working out rather well is a thirty five year old 'girl' (from my perspective) who manages to get Ash to talk, get involved in baking activities and instruct her on their daily nature walks. And so to this week which was the second step in the plan.  I'd decided I needed to leave Ash for longer and get him to the stage where he wasn't relian...

I now have two carers in place, the lovely L doing her Thursday still and A coming on Tuesdays for 4 hrs.  A starts properly next week but came last Tuesday and the visit seemed to go well.  I have lots to tell you on the carer front actually but not today.  Tomorrow and Wednesday are the beginning of a long term plan so think it will be good to wait until we're through them and then I can give you all the details at once. My plan is a very gentle step by step approach and I have hopes that it will work out.  I'm putting a lid on the hopes of course because I'd hate to be disappointed but I really think that if I go slowly and carefully it could really work and I might have a little more free time while Ash has the company of people who know what they're doing and have far more patience than I ever will. Actually I will tell you that last Thursday I'd planned to go out for lunch with a friend but we weren't leaving until 45 minutes after L had arrived.  I though...

 Hello.  Did you wonder where I'd gone, or maybe you didn't even know I'd been missing but that's such a dispiriting thought I've dismissed it from my mind without even really considering it.   The truth is that I've been poorly.  Not proper poorly, just ears that couldn't hear and a feeling of being so far underwater that my brain refused to function.  Am back in the land of the living now and almost feeling normal so here I am with my thoughts once again. I was going to post yesterday.  I had a lovely morning tramping over, and through, the Lincolnshire Wolds with a friend where we covered numerous topics and agreed on almost all of them which is always satisfying, then I came home, had lunch and was feeling ready to share my world with you again.  That feeling lasted right up until Ash and I went out wood collecting.  I'd asked him to come and push the full barrow home and he'd agreed so what on earth could go wrong? We got into the church...

 The past couple of days Ash has been confused and befuddled, with today being particularly difficult.  I put it down to the weather because, although he can talk at great length on how there's no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing, when outside is dull and dreary it seeps into his very soul as far as I can see and that makes life difficult for both of us. Ash has specific jobs that he likes to take responsibility for such as cleaning the fire out, getting the coal in, walking the dog, taking the bins up to the road and taking photos of happenings in the village and when the sun's out those jobs are enough.  When it isn't he walks aimlessly around the house trying his best to think of something to do and failing miserably.  Whatever I suggest is wrong and puts him in a worse mood and even the television doesn't hold his interest for long so he turns to food.   Cheese scones, a small gammon joint, cream cheese, bread and almost everything else I bou...

I've never got changed to go out of the house.  I realise other people do that but I never have.  I dressed in a morning and, unless we were going out for a meal or to the pub (and not always then), the clothes I put on in a morning were the ones I wore for the rest of the day.  I didn't have work clothes and leisure clothes I just had 'clothes' and for many, many years those clothes were black so that I could fade into the background and go, mostly, unnoticed.   Recently however, as you know, I've lost weight, quite a bit of weight as it happens and as a result I've discovered a new interest in clothes.  I look at them on-line and sometimes I buy them but we have dementia in the house and Covid in the outside world so we no longer go out and I could find no reason to wear the new clothes I'd either already bought or, sometimes, longed to buy.   Now, there have been several watershed moments along this road to dementia including the purchase of a ...

I had a brilliant afternoon in the garden yesterday using gadgets and things.  First the lawn mower, then the new trimmer thingy (can you tell I really don't have much idea what I'm doing out there) and, finally, the small electric saw which was used to create sticks.   While I was at work with the saw I remembered some logs which are laid at the side of the footpath not too far from the house.  They've been there two or three years now and  no-one has laid claim to them so I decided to collect them and add to my slightly diminishing pile at the bottom of the garden.  At that point I remembered the day I came home laden down with far too many pieces of firewood and, as a result, almost ended up tipping backwards into the stream.  I wasn't doing that again so I decided to take the wheelbarrow which I planned to load with the logs before pushing it back through the church yard and into the garden where I could unload it easily, neatly and without fuss. I...

Lovely, lovely day out yesterday.  This time I didn't tell Ash that L was coming until 10 minutes before she arrived and that seemed to work perfectly.  No time for stress, drama or worry, no thought of questions, just a relaxed acceptance that it was going to happen and there may be cheese scones involved and so there were.  Also an encounter with fly tippers while on the dog walk and the directing of a delivery van to a house further down the village, both of which were dealt with by Ash and his sidekick, so lots to tell me about when I got home.   As for me I had a wonderful time with coffee in the sunshine followed by a stroll round some of the larger stores.  There was just a little retail therapy to be seen in the form of books but mostly the day was spent planning the refurbishment of the patio so I have a sanctuary in the garden this summer when it's too warm to be up in my beautiful bedroom.   Watch out on the facebook page for before and...

A very short post today but Ash has mentioned L and the cheese scones a couple of times so I have high hopes for my day off and wanted to let you know.  Now working on a plan for a test night away in a couple of months time.  Very careful planning again and very small steps but if I take it slowly it might just work.  Keep your fingers crossed for that and think of me having a leisurely lunch tomorrow with a small amount of retail therapy thrown in for good measure.  I'll report back I promise. Don't forget you can sign up to have this delivered straight into your inbox, just remember to click on the validation email (which may be in your junk mail/trash box).  You can share specific posts with others by clicking on the 3 dots at the top right hand corner of the page, you can share the blog by copying and pasting the web address  www.memoryfortwo.com  or you can email me at  memoryfortwo@gmail.com  if you have anything you want to say private...

Still on the subject of memes I no longer need, I've just seen one that says 'If it was up to me it would not be up to me' and once again I remember the post.  Ash and I used to make all our decisions together although I have a feeling it didn't look like that to those looking in.  This was because, mostly, he didn't mind what we did and just went along with my suggestions, occasionally however I'd come up with some random idea and he'd look at me and say 'I don't think so' and that would be it.  When that happened there was never any point in arguing and anyway why would I want him to do something he didn't like?  So we moved through life mostly in agreement and, occasionally, agreeing to differ but the most important thing was the discussion of those ideas and the joint decisions.   Then dementia came creeping into our lives and suddenly not only was Ash incapable of making a decision but he really, really didn't want to even be asked f...

 I wake up every morning with the best of intentions to write a full and informative post and then frequently find myself at 4pm having started none of it and with no idea which part of the day to include.  Today has been no different.  We went to the garden centre this morning to buy a present for friends, I had a lovely, and very long, video call with one of my best friends who lives on the other side of the world and then I spent an hour and a half trying to sort out the pre-payment card sent to me on behalf of the council who are paying a very small amount towards L coming every week.  This is fine and I'm actually grateful for any help towards the bill but the first one has come in and the council haven't given me their share towards it so that's a little stressful.  So that's three things I could write about but the first and the third were quite boring and the middle one was private so what to do? With that in mind I've been thinking about how far we've c...

It turns out that L is a miracle worker.  Once upon a time Ash did all the cooking in this house but since dementia came calling he's done less and less and, over the past two years at least, none at all.  Today I suggested to L that if she could make cheese scones for Ash he would be her friend for life.  Came home to find that not only had she made them. but they'd made them together!! To say I was stunned is an understatement.  He'd also been very chatty, told her all about the work he's done on the house over the years, shown here around the village and, all in all, they'd had a lovely day.    Mine was the most relaxing time away from Ash that I've had in years.  I didn't worry about him at all and surprisingly, for me at least, I didn't spend any time wondering what he was doing.  Instead I wandered around Lincoln checking out shops, trying on shoes and doing all the things that I usually absolutely hate doing and there were two main reasons ...

I realised today that I'm in a post lockdown rebuild.  Yesterday I had my eyebrows reshaped, this morning saw me in a tanning booth for the third time in two weeks, this afternoon I had my eye lashes curled and I have a pedicure booked for two weeks time so actually think I'm rebuilding myself from the ground up.  Who am I doing it for?  Me of course and I think that's the best part of all of it.  This time last year I had a completely different outlook on life but the weight's gone, the life seems to have come back into my eyes and I'm feeling better than I have for a very long time.  If you've been following this blog for a while you'll know that I'm not always this upbeat but I do try for an optimistic outlook and am a great believer in working to create the life I want, not just waiting for it to happen.  Right now this is my way of heading into the summer on a positive trajectory and I have high hopes that the positivity will continue.  In fact I...

One of the things I find most difficult about this life is the feeling of ever shifting sand beneath my feet.  For the past two weeks at least, every morning has begun with Ash writing in his notebook the time he woke up and then, when I've taken his tea in, I've sat on the bed while we've gone through what happens next ie cup of tea at ......., 2nd cup of tea at ......., get up at .......  This has worked really well every single morning right up until this one.  I took his tea in as usual, sat down on the bed and watched while he picked up and opened his notebook.  He'd written down the time he'd woken up and then as usual he wrote down the current time followed by 'tea' and 'tablets'.  That's the point where he asks me what happens next so I automatically said 'and then a 2nd cup of tea at 6.45'.  His usual response is a smile and the adding of the information to his notebook followed by 'then what?'.  This morning I was greete...

Our second day with the carer today and, once again, it seems to have gone rather well.  I hope I know better by now than to expect it to go perfectly every week but I do feel we're making progress.  I had a plan of course, a plan which would explain, on a basic level, why I'd gone out and a plan which I hoped would ease us into a new way of living. This week, on advice from others, I didn't mention L coming until 9am (she was due at 9.30) and that worked because Ash didn't have time to panic.  He thought he might wait until she arrived and then take her for a walk with the dog but he wasn't sure where to go.  At that point I reminded him that he'd promised her, if she brought her wellies this week, he'd take her down through the wood at the other end of the village and he seemed pleased with that idea.  L arrived and off they went with the only slightly sticky bit coming when I said I might be out when they got back but we got him out of the house and I too...

Have now had two nights sleep and it really is amazing what a difference it makes.  After five days of walking around in a fog I've rediscovered my sense of humour, I've managed to put that smile back in my voice when I speak to Ash and it seems we're back on track.   So my brain's functioning again but there's still more to celebrate.  Yesterday I told you about the two item job list which Ash relished the reading of but that was all, well today he looked at it again, got the step ladder out and cleared the gutter at the front of the house.  He was so pleased with himself when he'd finished that he couldn't stop grinning and, to be honest, neither could I because I have a fear of heights and was dreading having to do just that job.  And on top of all that my bedroom is working its magic so well that I've managed to relax enough to start reading again.  I have to say here that I never actually stopped reading but it became a bedtime thing when my eyes ...