That time already

Seems it's a month since I last blogged OMG where does the time go?
Well most of it I have spent writing my new book. I have also written a few poems. I sent one to Writers' Forum monthly poetry competition.It's £5 to enter and win or loose you always get a critique,which is really helpful. This time I was pleased that I was a runner up and my poem will be published in next month's WF.

Do you ever find adverts creepy? There is one on at the moment for Avios and I find the music so spooky, really gets to me, like someone running their finger nails down a blackboard.
Blackboards what are they you may ask? Whiteboards have taken over, I hate them. My poor writing looks worse on them. My teacher in primary school, Mrs Matts, would not have liked them. She read us a story at the end of the day, before home time and she often illustrated them on the blackboard using coloured chalk. I remember her fantastic picture of The Borrowers. It is still vivid in my mind.
The photo above is Mrs Matts and my class. Guess which one is me?

My birthday

( Me, hubby and grandchildren - Maria and Jake )


Well my birthday came and went, as they do.
We celebrated with a meal in the Tobery Carvery ( had a voucher from the paper 2 meals a tenner. Everyone else seemed to have one too!) then we went to the cinema to watch 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' which we really enjoyed.
I had my usual moan about the price of pop corn, at £4 a bag I think it is ludicrous.
We buy a packet from the health shop for about 70p and it lasts ages.
Still it was my birthday and my OH said as we didn't celebrate it last year as he was in Egypt we'd push the boat out. Ha!
The day after my birthday my daughter treated me to lunch in the Beefeater and then we had a birthday tea at my son's. My granddaughter Maria helped me blow the candles out. Yes there are a few now!
My presents were mostly books, one on poetry, one on Sherlock Holmes ( the dummies guide) and one about Lady Hamilton. I have become interested in this period of history now, having visited Portsmouth last week!
I am thinking of setting my next book in this period.

Day out in Portsmouth

We went down to Portsmouth at the weekend. My birthday treat!
I had not been to Portsmouth since the children were little and was very impressed with all the new changes. There is a fantastic shopping centre by the harbour now, with many designer shops and there are lots of restaurants:Italian,Spanish and Indian for example. And now of course there is the Spinnaker Tower, which at 170metres high overlooks the Harbour, Gunwharf Quay,and city centre. I had heard so much about this on BBC South news and had been dying to go up it and it did not disappoint. We took the lift to the first level, where you can have a go at walking on the glass floor, which I did even though I hate heights!
Then we climbed the steps to the next level where there is a cafe. ( There is a lift to this level but it's not far)
Then we went up to the Crow's nest level.( No lift to this level but again it's not far up)
At each level there are amazing views, as far away as 23 miles.
In the east we saw Chichester cathedral, in the south the Isle of Wight,in the west The New Forest.
Below we could see all the boats and ships in the dock, including HMS Victory.
The weather was good so we had a great view.
The tickets lasted all day so we went back up at night and that was quite something, seeing all the lights twinkling around us.
We would definitely go up it again and I recommend going there, if you haven't been.
Check out offers on the internet if you do go as I saw that if you spend over ten pound in the nearby Waterside cafe first you get one free ticket up the tower. It all helps!
After the tower we went on The Victory and had a guided tour. The tour guude was very entertaining and I learnt a lot about life at sea, which I didn't know before, like where the expression Toe Rag comes from! Yuk!
Maybe you know already?
We also went on The Warrior and in the Mary Rose Museum.
We had a boat ride around the dock, included in the ticket price. Hot drinks on board and an informative talk from the captain.
We saw the new war ship 'The Daring' going out of port. That is off to the Middle East soon, I heard on the BBC South news this morning.
Wherever we went we found all staff very friendly and chatty.
All in all we spent a great day in Portsmouth. It reminds me of Barcelona in some ways with the shops by the dock and all the eating places.
In fact I think it is is better. We had great weather which helps.
Everything is well set out.
It made a lovely birthday outing and how nice that my birthday week is not accompained by snow and freezing temperatures, as it usually is!
See how blue the sky was when I took the above photo of the Spinnaker Tower!

Happy New Year!

(Maria, my granddaughter in her Nativity play. She is the one in the crown)


Been a while since I posted, have been very busy sorting out my mum's care home and getting her settled and what with Christmas and New Year celebrations things have been hectic.
We spent Christmas day with my daughter and partner. They cooked a great dinner, we took Mum there too. The day as always went far too quickly.
The day after Boxing Day was spent with my son, his wife and two grandchildren.
Had a lot of fun watching them open their pressies. Maria now age four and Jake one.

Now I must get back on track with my writing and here are my writing resolutions for 2012.
Finish my children's book, The Snake Princess and send out to agents etc.
Send as many poems out to competitions as possible and perhaps if funds allow do another poetry course.
Try and finish my article writing course.
Read all the books I had for Xmas.
Think about my next book.

Think that is enough to be getting on with for now.

Happy New Year all, hope you have a healthy one full of love and publishing success!

Care homes

The last few days OH and I have been on a hunt for a suitable care home for Mum.
So you ring up ask if it's council funded and if it is you go and look.
You can go for one that isn't council funded, but that would mean you have to pay all the fees or get a top up.
Either way the council take your parents hard earned money so Mum's flat is on the market. Some people say this is fair that your property is sold to fund your care in later life and I suppose it is. How else can care be paid for? With so many people now living to a good age more and more funding will be necessary and this is a real problem for any government. One idea was that people should pay something out of their wage each month towards care. But that would mean you receive even less take home pay after pension and national insurance and this idea was not well received.
The problem of care funding is not so great in Egypt, where my OH comes from, as parents live with their children and children expect to take care of them til they die unless of course they are very ill.
Anyway we found one home we liked and now have to wait to see if they say Mum can go there as each care home does its own assessment.

Vascular dementia

Finally had Mum's assessment yesterday - she has vascular dementia. I was telling them that last week!
Anyway, I spoke to Tessa from social care yesterday re mum's case and for the first time I had some proper help about what to do next. Mum will have to go into a care home.
So now we are looking at the funding and boy oh boy this is complicated!
She explained how the council will fund some of her care but she will have to pay some each week, if she has more than the allowance and also we have to sell her flat.
It's not worth a lot really and we all kind of guessed this would happen.
All of this financial stuff has been left to me to sort out and I spent most of yesterday ringing various help lines, Age UK etc to try and get an idea of our options.
Mum's flat could take two years to sell and her savings will run out in no time as she doesn't have much. There is a lot to consider and then we have to visit some homes.
My brother rang yesterday evening to say how Mum was being discharged and was going to St George's - the original plan as they were trying to kick her out on Monday and we wanted to make sure Mum had somewhere to go. I said no she mustn't now as we have to find a council funded home. Seems Tessa had not told the ward staff that Mum wasn't going there now! So I quickly rang the ward to make sure it wasn't going to happen.
Once again complete lack of communication between staff at that hospital.
The nightmare is not over yet.

And on and on

My head is all over the place at the moment.
We were told Mum was going home yesterday, so I rang Janet (not real name) at the hospital social care dept yesterday to find out what was happening. She said your mum isn't going home.
I said, you told me on Friday she would be and if not today then tomorrow. She said I was mistaken!
I said we were on the phone for half an hour on Friday talking about this and also my brother had been talking with the ward sister for an hour about all the things that would be set in place to help Mum at home. He was told that they needed the bed.
Janet said well as you were concerned further investigations will be carried out.
Your Mum has trouble getting out her chair and is confused. ARRGH! Hadn't we already said that a hundred times and this was why we knew Mum should not go home!
Weren't they themselves concerned?
Anyway, yesterday afternoon Mum finally had a head scan, but why wasn't this done last week? Surely this should be routine when an elderly person starts falling over? TIAs are very common in the elderly but they were sending her home without one!
Today ANOTHER woman from social care, Tessa, ( not real name) rang me, she is going to help assess Mum now. How many more people are there doing this? This is not helping Mum's confusion!
So once again I had to spend half an hour on the phone telling Tessa about Mum's recent problems etc.
In the meantime the whole family being p----d with the whole business and worried about Mum thought Mum could spend a few weeks in a nice care home, my brother knows, to recuperate to get stronger, in the hope she can return to her flat soon, although we think that unlikely as she is now so confused, we believe she is suffering from dementia.
However the ward sister said she can't be released until she has had her referral ( Psychiatric assessment etc) Ye gods! They were sending her home without this before and now they say she can't go until she has it! AARGH!
Who is going to ring next I wonder from the hospital? Does anyone know what is happening there? Do they actually commmunicate with one another?
There is an elderly frightened old woman in the midst of all this.
Does anyone there really care about her?