Writing a list for tomorrow

 Thanks so much everyone for the lovely comments yesterday, some of which made me cry - not because they upset me, they didn't, it was because they were so empathetic.  It is hard living with someone you've loved for what seems like your whole life, when they're now so different, through no fault of their own.  This is not how I envisaged our retirement years together - but then none of us do, we don't expect our lives to turn out so differently, with a debilitating illness ourselves or for our partners, and having our partners die prematurely must be the ultimate devastation.  I think it's important to say that husband is not always - well, horrible.....there are moments when he is almost like he was years ago, calm, carefree and funny.  But those moments are getting fewer and fewer.  This morning, in complete contrast to yesterday morning, he's been fine, cheerful and helpful, he cleaned the draining board and dish drainer without me asking, washed up the things that were left over from last night, dried and put them away.  I don't expect his good mood will last all day though, it never does, but I appreciate the brief times when he's being nice and helpful.

I've done most of my housework jobs already, had an early start and got things done.  I'm now going to be making a list of shops I want to go in tomorrow in Bridgwater and the things I want to get.  I'm working on the assumption that if husband is indeed diagnosed with some form of dementia next week, then his driving days will soon be over - if not immediately then certainly within a fairly short space of time.  So I want to take advantage of the fact that he can still drive now and get a car load (well, not necessarily a full car load but definitely a good stock up) of stuff from the stores that we don't have here in Minehead.  I think I'll get some nice foodie bits from M&S food store for Christmas, I'll put them in a box under my bed so we're not tempted to indulge before.  I want some long sleeved t-shirts, there's a Next store there or Sainsbury's Tu range does some nice ones I've had before.  The big Superdrug there does a bigger range of toiletries and health products than the much smaller store here.  I want to go in the big pet store and have a look at their extensive range of kibble for Betty, I'll be checking all the ingredients on each bag.  I recently read an article about dried dog food which said that the words 'Vet approved' on the bag actually means nothing - we're led to believe that it means a vet has been involved in developing the food.....no it doesn't, especially not on the cheaper ranges, it simply means that they've paid a vet a fee just to say "Yeah that's alright" and they haven't had any input at all other than that.  Now why doesn't that surprise me?!  There are only 2 or 3 dried dog food ranges that actually have a vet helping in the development, they tend to be the more expensive ranges, ones like Hills Science Plan and Royal Canin.  I buy good quality food for us, so why wouldn't I for Betty?

It was cold, raining and downright dreary all day yesterday and today doesn't look much better, we had the heating on all day long yesterday, it's on this morning too.  Tomorrow looks much better, sunshine and no rain, I'll get washing out on the line before we go out.  

When I got up this morning I could see Betty was feeling off colour and potentially gearing up for a colitis flare up.....I gave her one of her anti-sickness tablets first thing and it seems to have headed it off.  She indicated she was feeling hungry just now (I hadn't given her any breakfast before), so I gave her a little bit of fish, tinned sardines in spring water, which she wolfed down.  When she's very unwell with the colitis she won't eat anything at all, which is very sensible of her!

I've got a portion of homemade lamb stew out of the freezer for husband's dinner today, I'll do some mashed potato to go with it, I'll make a sort of fishy cottage pie for me, using tinned salmon.  Tenderstem broccoli on the side for both of us.

I always think of my Granddad on Armistice Day, he was an army soldier fighting mostly in Italy during WWII.  In common with lots of servicemen, he rarely spoke of his experiences there, he said he didn't want to think about it.  He did like to watch the Remembrance day services on the TV, he even used to stand to attention and salute when watching parades of ex-servicemen marching past the Cenotaph.

You're not me, and I'm not you

 Husband has definitely got out of bed on the wrong side this morning, he's in a very argumentative mood and has already snapped at me twice, it's a day for keeping out of his way.  I'm sure he's worrying about the test results next week but, as is usual, he won't discuss it with me and just shuts down if I ask if he wants to talk about it.

I had another nasty comment on the blog yesterday, I'm obviously not publishing it, it's been binned straight away.  Anonymous, of course.  I've had a few comments lately, none of which I published, telling me I should be kinder to husband, and/or be grateful he's still alive!  To which I just think to myself - you try living with him, he's not an identikit of your husband and you have absolutely no idea of what life with him is like.

I know he can't help the things he does or says, it's doubtful he does it deliberately or even thinks about the possible consequences.  Doesn't make it any easier to actually cope with on a daily basis though.  You need the patience of a saint - and I'm no saint.  I have however learnt to bite my tongue and walk away, hard though it is.  

I'm obviously very concerned about husband being given a dementia diagnosis, because I know he will go downhill, quickly or slowly but definitely downhill.  I will accept help, if there's any to be had (the lady from the Alzheimer's Society said there's very little practical help here actually), but even if we get any, I'm the one who will be here coping mostly alone 24/7 and it's not a welcome prospect.  He's not at all grateful and never thanks me for anything I do for him - he's got the runs this morning (his diverticular disease flaring up) and just announced that we have no diarrhoea tablets.  Which meant I had to go and find them for him because I know full well we have - they were in full view on the worktop right beside the medicine box, beats me why he couldn't see them but that is quite usual for him.  He never said a word when I handed them to him.  

I also keep thinking 'What if they say next week that he doesn't have dementia?  That's almost a worse scenario in my opinion.....it means that the lovely, laid back, kind and funny man I've been with for 45+ years has just turned into a cross between Kevin the teenager and Alf Garnett/Victor Meldrew.  The sullen scowling teen who constantly answers back and is defiant, the highly opinionated and argumentative nastiness of Alf Garnett, combined with the grumpiness and jaded views of Victor Meldrew.  Plus he's as stubborn as a mule, won't listen to me and runs me down to others and has something negative to say about virtually anything and everything I cook for him.

I agreed to the 'In sickness and in health, till death us do part' promises when we got married 43 years ago, and that's what it will be.  I take care of him and do whatever needs doing, to the best of my ability.  So to anyone who's lost their husband....I'm sorry for you, I really am, but I'm not you, you don't have my life and my husband is not the same as your husband was.  I put down my thoughts and feelings on this blog because it gets things off my chest in a fairly anonymous way - none of my or husband's family members know of or read my blog, and only 2 of my closest friends read it, so I can vent my feelings in a safe space.  It's a pity that those people who don't agree with me or what I do/say can't just keep their mouths shut, instead of criticising me when they don't live in my house!

Yes it was a lovely weekend

 Thank you all for the birthday wishes.  We did have a really nice weekend with husband's daughter and son in law, they're a lovely couple.  We did lunch for them on Saturday - no cooking, just sandwiches and buffet things, then husband and SiL went out to get fish and chips for our tea.  Sunday morning they came round about 09.15 for breakfast, I kept it simple....just mini sausages, bacon, hash browns, beans and crumpets, everyone helped themselves and daughter washed up afterwards.  The roast carvery we went out for was delicious as always, they do a very good selection of help yourself veggies there so I was more than happy.  They're extremely generous with their meat portions.....although it's now only 2 meats, beef and turkey, they used to do gammon as well, I guess everywhere is feeling the pinch.  In fact, the meat portions served were so generous that none of them could finish theirs, so husband asked for and received a takeaway carton, he brought several thick slices of beef and turkey home.  It's now in the freezer and husband says he's having it for his Christmas Day lunch - brilliant, means I don't have to buy or cook it.  They set off on their journey home after the lunch, we returned home and watched Strictly on catch up.  Husband's SiL is very empathetic and understanding, his mother has Alzheimer's and is in a nursing home near where they live.  When they were leaving, he gave me a big hug and whispered in my ear that even though they live 3 hours drive away, if I ever need help or have a crisis I just have to ring them and they'll come straight down.  How lovely of him, I really appreciated that.

Although I haven't done anything over the weekend, today I'm feeling worn out - I think it's just kind of being 'on the go' all the time with visitors, even if we're just sitting talking.  I don't really do much talking when it's just husband and me here, he does most of the chatting!  So having done the odd few necessary jobs this morning, I'm having a quiet afternoon in my room.  Dinner tonight is veggies cooked in a tomato sauce with a sachet of brown and red rice, quinoa and seeds, and some sausages for husband left over from yesterday's breakfast.

It's turned so cold now, especially with fog hanging around in places, makes it feel even colder and damper, although it's not raining.  I did washing this morning but didn't even bother putting it outside, I knew it wouldn't dry with the cold damp weather.  So it's on the heated airer in the hall.....which does keep the area around the airer nice and warm too.  I'm very thankful to have a nice warm house, and electricity bills that aren't too bad at all because of the solar panels on the roof.

There's nothing much on the calendar for this week, although next week is pretty busy.  I think we might have a trip to Taunton or Bridgwater this week, whilst husband can still drive.....we get the results of his dementia tests next week.....if it's bad news then he might not be driving anymore after that.  So it makes sense for us to go and get any major stock up shopping or visit clothes or shoe shops this week.  Other than that, I'm trying to put next week's verdict out of my mind.

A nice weekend

 Yesterday was my birthday, it was very low key as it has been for the last few years, but I had a good day doing.....absolutely nothing!!  No housework, washing, cooking or even meal prep, husband did it - well, the meal prep and minimal cooking anyway, bless him.  I just sat around reading, doing a bit of crochet and watching a bit of TV, something I almost never do during the day.  Husband did offer to take me out for lunch but I didn't fancy it, it was raining, cloudy and cold yesterday so I said I'd rather stay home in the warm.  For some slightly strange but nevertheless nice reason, he'd bought me a cake - a lemon drizzle one from M&S, it was very lovely actually.  I say strange because for the last 2 or 3 years he hasn't got me anything, and I'd already told him I was making a big tray of bread pudding, so we were inundated with cake!  The bread pud mixture made a tray of 9 squares, plus a smaller one of 4 squares, I've wrapped and frozen it all in portions.  I've just finished the last piece of lemon drizzle for breakfast!  Husband made me prawn mayo sandwiches for lunch yesterday, yummy, for tea I didn't want much and it had to be something easy as husband was doing it.  We decided on potato waffles, scrambled egg, beans and mushrooms, with bacon for husband.  I've not had bought potato waffles for years, I have to say I didn't like them at all, too dry and very bland.  The beans, egg and mushrooms were lovely though.  I thanked husband for doing the food and washing up and generally looking after me (he made me several coffees throughout the day)....he said that's alright, I could do the same for him in 2 months when it's his birthday!  (😒I do the same for him every day! 😉).

On Thursday husband had decided he wanted to go on the free shoppers bus to Bridgwater.....he's out for a long time - 5 hours, hence why I don't go with him as I don't want to leave Betty home alone for that long.  I'm a little bit anxious about him doing it, although he's got plenty of other people (oldies) on the bus with him and the shopping centre (out of town retail units) is busy so there'd be help available if he needed it.  He doesn't get confused or forget where he is - well, not at the moment anyway.  He always has his phone with him....not that it's a lot of use as whenever I try to ring him to check he's ok he either doesn't hear it or can't get it out of his pocket quick enough to answer it!  He went because he wanted to buy himself some new warm tops for winter, plus he said he wanted to buy a new toy or chewy for Betty.  He also got me the cake and a lovely card, he has always had a knack of picking out lovely cards, although has occasionally bought anniversary cards instead of birthday, and vice versa!  However, for Betty he didn't buy a toy, but a huge bag of dried beef jerky - which she cannot eat because of her colitis and special diet!  I've reminded him she's on this special low fat, low fibre diet and can basically only eat chicken or white fish, so suggested he doesn't buy her anything to eat in future, or at least rings me to ask first.  He'll no doubt forget again though.

The tops he bought wouldn't be my choice of colours even for him - one is sludge brown, the other a depressing dark olive green.  Still, he's the one wearing them, not me.  At least they fit him, which is something - a couple of weeks ago he ordered himself a pair of jeans online, I can only assume he bought the wrong size by mistake, as they appear to be made for someone who is 6" taller than him and about a stone or 2 heavier, they're massively baggy around the bum and thighs and in big wrinkles round the ankles.  Of course he ordered them without telling me or even showing me what he was ordering, or I'd have helped him get the right size.  Hey ho, they were cheap!

Husband's daughter has texted me to say they're on their way here, they're stopping off at the lovely Gloucester Services for a loo and coffee break.  She sent me a gorgeous bunch of mixed roses and a lovely card, which has a photo of Betty on it - how thoughtful, it really made me smile.  We're having fish and chips tonight, they've said it's not something they often have (they're more into burgers and katsu chicken type things) but are really looking forward to it.  Tomorrow we're all booked in for a Sunday carvery roast, I'm looking forward to that, they do a lovely selection of veggies there.  Should be a nice weekend.

Thank you for all your lovely comments.

Bread pudding and not doing Christmas

 Firstly, thanks for the info re the trains and buses Sally, we'll pass it on to the neighbour.

I had lots of odds and ends of stale bread in the bottom drawer of the freezer, all different kinds - wholemeal, sourdough and seeded, and a gluten free roll which wasn't very nice.  I thought it was about time I made use of it all, to clear space, so am making a large baking tin of bread pudding today, it's one of husband's all time favourites.  I remember my Mum used to make it a lot when we were kids, a cheap and filling treat for hungry kids coming home from school I guess.  The torn and scrunched up bread, mixed dried fruit and mixed spice are in a large bowl soaking up warm milk and melted butter, the house suddenly smells like Christmas.  I'll add beaten eggs, brown sugar and a handful of veggie suet in a bit.  I don't follow a recipe, just chuck in whatever I've got, I simply do what my Mum used to do - she always added suet to hers but I know some recipes don't.  I think Mum used a mixture of milk and water rather than just milk, I've used all milk (oat milk actually) as I've got plenty of it.  Sometimes we had a piece as cake with a cup of tea, sometimes it was pudding with custard or evaporated milk.  I used to love the crunch of the demerara sugar Mum sprinkled on top, I don't usually do that nowadays, I cut down drastically on sugar due to our diabetes.

Speaking of Christmas, I think ours is going to be very low key this year - well, we don't really make much of Christmas anyway, husband is the world's biggest Grinch and I'm not really bothered one way or the other....with my Mum dying on Christmas Eve and my lovely Nanna on Boxing day it's always a time of mixed feelings anyway.  Husband's grandchildren are all grown up so we don't buy them presents, they preferred money when they were teenagers but now say they don't need us to give them money as they're all in good jobs.  I do like to make a donation to one or two favourite charities at Christmas, and we put food treats in the foodbank bins in the supermarket.  In previous years husband has always liked to have about 3 different roast meats for Christmas and Boxing days - even when I ate meat I didn't really see the point of that when it was just the 2 of us, seemed excessive to me and there was always so much meat left over which I then had to freeze.  This year he's said maybe he'll have a nice steak for Christmas day (he'll cook it himself).....I've not given much thought yet to what I'll have, to be honest I'd be quite happy with a bowl of homemade broccoli and Stilton soup and a toasted cheese sandwich.  One tradition we do still follow though is for our favourite Christmas day breakfast - scrambled eggs with a splash of cream, smoked salmon and plenty of black pepper on sourdough toast.

I'm thinking of not even putting up the tree this year - no real reason except I can't really be bothered!  I have to do it all myself anyway as husband refuses to get involved....I don't mind putting it up and decorating it, but the taking it down and putting it all away and the sheer emptiness of the room after it's taken down makes me feel it's not really worth it!  So this year I'm (almost!) as much of a Grinch as husband is 😂😂

The red scald marks on my face and hand from being splattered with boiling hot exploded egg yesterday are already fading and no longer sore, and the horrible eggy smell has gone from the kitchen.  I did find some pieces of egg underneath the dish drainer when I washed the draining board down this morning, and a lump stuck to the kitchen window that I'd obviously missed yesterday.  Who'd have thought one egg could make such a mess?!

An accident and a shocking fee

 Started the day off today with an accident, which could have been so much worse.  Last night I'd put a pan of eggs on to hard boil, one for Betty's breakfast and the rest for egg sandwiches for our lunch.  Husband has a real obsession at the moment about pans on the hob, he's always switching them off 'before they boil over', often without saying anything to me.  It's not a new behaviour, he has this particular obsession regularly every few weeks.  Well, he'd switched the eggs off before they were cooked properly.  When I began peeling Betty's one this morning it was instantly obvious it wasn't hard boiled, or even soft boiled come to that, the white was still very runny, and the shell wouldn't come off, I only managed to peel a little bit.  So I put the whole egg in a dish and put it in the microwave, thinking it should be fine as part of the shell was already off, I did it for 45 seconds.  As I took the egg bowl out of the microwave, however, the egg suddenly and loudly exploded, covering me and the entire kitchen with bits of egg and shell.  Very fortunately, I'd turned my head to the side as I took the bowl out.....if I hadn't, I would have had a face full of boiling hot egg, and possibly been blinded.  As it was, my hair, left cheek and side of my neck were covered with myriad bits of egg, I immediately went to the bathroom and washed it all off with a flannel wrung out in cold water.  I'm left with several small scalded red marks on my face, neck and the hand that was holding the bowl, all quite sore - but how lucky was I, thank goodness I'd turned my head.

I was just starting to clean up the kitchen when husband and Betty came back from their walk - I was glad they were out at the time, the loud bang would have scared the life out of Betty (it did me!).  Husband just looked around the kitchen and said "Well what a mess, what happened here?".  I told him and he simply said how amazing that one little egg could cause such a mess.  I very pointedly said "Yes, and I'm ok thanks!" whereupon he looked guilty and said oh did it hit you?!  It shook me up actually, my hands were trembling for a while afterwards.  All ok now though, and husband did help to clear up - he got a stool to clean off the tops of the walls, wall cupboards and even the ceiling, it really did make an extensive mess, you'd have thought it was half a dozen eggs not just one!  I bet I'll be finding bits of egg still over the next few days.

Husband is busy outside, mixing cement to render a low drystone wall along a shallow raised bed in the back garden, the wall is old and is beginning to collapse, the weight of the soil in the bed has already pushed some of the stones out.  I'm glad he's actually doing it, I did say to him it needs to be done before next Spring or we won't be able to plant anything in that bed as the wall will probably collapse over winter.  We had strawberries in it this year, which didn't do very well, I'm thinking we might have flowers next year.  I've got lots of Spring flowering bulbs to plant, I'll put those in there.

A neighbour who's recently given up driving for health reasons has to go for a scan at a hospital in Bristol in a couple of weeks, Bristol is around 1.5 hours drive away.  He's booked a taxi and has been quoted a fee of £350 for the return journey.  Blimey!! 😮  He says he's not eligible for hospital patient transport, I don't know why.  This is one of the things that worries me in the (likely) event that husband will have to give up driving.  I know we won't have car expenses then but even so, that's a hell of a lot of money to have to pay out.

Counterfeit! And obsessiveness

 Last week we had a lovely kind follow up letter from the lady from the Alzheimer's Society who'd been to see us, it was handwritten in a white envelope, also handwritten and with a 2nd class stamp affixed.  However, this bright yellow sticker from Royal Mail was attached to the front of the envelope:-

A counterfeit stamp!  The stamp looked perfectly alright to me.  I wonder where she got the stamp from?

Husband is going through one of his obsessive phases, he keeps checking how much electricity we've used and telling me nearly every day.  I really don't need to know and our electricity usage is quite minimal anyway, the solar panels on the roof help with that.  He also keeps turning things off - he helpfully informed me he'd switched off the new potatoes I was cooking for potato salad yesterday "so they don't boil over" - I'd literally only just put them on and they were only just coming up to the boil.  He'd also switched off the air fryer at the socket, something which I never do - there's no need - so I was left wondering why it wouldn't work when I put the pizza in later.  Funnily enough, he never switches the TV off!! 😂😒.  And his latest untruth about me - he told our next door neighbour that I don't love him anymore - she quietly told me later on that he'd said it.  Luckily, she's been a carer looking after dementia patients in the past, so knows they can be prone to saying hurtful things.  Each time he says something hurtful, I tell myself he doesn't mean it, he doesn't really understand what he's saying or the impact it could have.  It still hurts all the same.

He talked all the way through Strictly yesterday evening (he commentates on all the dances, giving his expert(!!) opinion) and kept winding the dog up, so she kept barking - this happens nearly every week, it's one of the very few programmes I actually like to sit and watch, and it's ruined by those two!  And a friend, who should know better, they're not interested in Strictly themselves, kept texting me as well, grr.  As soon as it finished, I went to bed for some peace and quiet.

No trick or treaters here last night (Halloween seems to have exploded in popularity here now, just another cynical moneygrabbing thing as far as I'm concerned), although we did hear a few fireworks in the distance.....Betty heard them too, cocking her head and listening intently, but they didn't seem to bother her much, they weren't close or loud enough.  I'm not looking forward to Bonfire Night though, quite a few neighbours - not in our sheltered housing estate but surrounding neighbours - had fireworks last year, Betty really doesn't like them.  I've got one of those calming plug-ins, plus some chamomile and lavender biscuit treats, and we'll make sure the curtains are closed and the TV on quite loud.