Without the Camera

 
Original source of picture unknown.

This is how stressed I’ve been this week: Not only  do I have very little idea of what’s been going on in the Blog World (my usual little corner of it), but on Wednesday I forgot to bring the camera! (Perhaps just as well.)

Harry-the-dog also spent most of the day just lying under a table and giving us gloomy looks. 

Wednesday was the day we moved “things” from dad’s old house to his new room/ flat at the assisted living/nursing home place.

There’s so much I cannot do, that there’s no use trying to compare myself to “anyone else”. But what I did do (pack and unpack a lot of “little” things like clothes and sheets and towels and ornaments and photos etc) still meant at least five times the intensity of a normal day for me. Which does not come unpunished.

Some of the “moves” my brother did on the same day I did not dare watch even without camera...

However, no major accidents occurred, and we did not (I think) forget anything really important, and “things” are now in place for when Dad moves in next week.

For the times they are a’changin’…*

From the patio outside the “assisted living” place my dad will be moving to – shortly. Exactly how shortly is still not 100% clear, which is causing us some trouble.

We have to wait for redecoration to be finished before any stuff can be moved in, and stuff has to be moved in before dad can be moved in… Well.

 

When all is in place, including dad, I expect it will be as good as can be, when life is no longer as good as it was, and help is needed with things you hoped you would never in your life need help with. Still a place to call your own (with some old things to hopefully remind you of who you are), right inside a bigger home (unit for 8), right inside an even bigger home (complex containing a whole range of similar units with different levels of care), right in the centre of a village you know better than any other place. Or at least used to.

Most likely I won’t be around in Blogland as much as usual over the next couple of weeks, because what little energy I have will be required elsewhere.

The weather is not being very helpful. It does not show on the picture above, but going out to the village by bus yesterday (which takes me just over an hour at best, and often an hour and a half, one way), I also had to fight storm winds and torrential rain showers.

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
* For the times they are a-changin’

Bob Dylan

A Moving Situation

When I entered my email account today, an ad turned up at the top of the page, insisting that “Moving is the best medicine”...

My spontaneous reaction: “I don’t think so!!!”

Well. Related to exercise and arthritis (as the ad was) the statement probably does have some relevance. I’m not going to argue with that. (Not today, anyway.)

What is on top of my mind, is all the preparations for moving dad to a new home. Hopefully in the end it is the best possible solution (even if no cure) but just now it involves a lot of stress, tension and headaches for my brother and me, trying to sort out the details.

One of the details is that we still haven’t got the exact date. Today at least I found out that the reason for this is that the new place is going to be redecorated, which of course in itself is a good thing. Even when you are no longer able to take much notice of your surroundings, I think it must give a better feeling to move into a fresh and clean place than a shabby-looking one.

But not to be able to set a date for the whole moving apparatus certainly does not alleviate the general feeling of stress…

Hopefully I’ll be able to go and have a peek at the place next Wednesday; when it should be empty, waiting for the painters. Just to get a feeling of the size and shape of the room/flat – and some more info from the staff.

…

The pictures? Just some from the last month which I haven’t had any other use for yet… ;) That car in the last picture just rushed by in the street one day and I hardly had time to get the camera out of the bag. The photo was blurry - because the car was moving! - so I tried all sorts of editing to it, including blurring the edges a bit too and just keeping the colour on the most colourful parts of the odd-looking vehicle... (In case it is too blurry for you to see, it has no hood over the engine, but that is one clean-and-shiny-looking engine!)