First world war and all that!

My novel 'Coming of Age' begins in 1918 when 8 million women in the UK got the vote. The thrust of the story is the moving forward of women's lives but I could hardly not mention the war. In other words I had to look back too. As polling day 1918 was held on December 14th I couldn't leave out Christmas either. Of course not all homes in the UK wanted a Christmas Tree in December 1918. Not all the fit and able troops had returned, so some homes weren't places for celebrations, other families had lost loved ones through battle or disease, and of course the Christmas Tree was felt to be a non-British tradition.
I hope readers will feel I've engaged with the conflicts ( small c) of the time.
As for another conflict ( larger 'C'?) :-
Although I am a Scot by name I find I keep thinking of Alex Salmond as not the Old Pretender, nor the Young Pretender, but the 'New Pretender'.  All I'm going to say is  it's a dangerous world out there for a brand new country ...

It would have been easier to move house!

August for us has been a hardworking month - yes another of those events. I'm glad it's over and really pleased it's now September. How fortunes and priorities change! I wouldn't have welcomed September when I was still trundling to 'the institution' i/c SEN teaching.
As well as sorting mum's house and garden I have made my study at the top of the house- that meant two strong men carrying my bureau up two flights of stairs. I have cleared said bureau and my old study has also had paperwork &c moved to the new study. Moving documents and files - plus chucking a great deal - took two or three days alone. The old study has been transformed into a new sitting room. Furniture has been painted, new curtains & paintings hung, shelves tidied, a new sky box installed today and, finally, the room looks like a living room. The walk in wardrobe has had the paintings in there moved back to Richard's studio. In order to get into said studio even more paintings were successfully lifted to a waiting car for a car boot sale over the bank holiday. Books and paintings ain't light.
I washed Richard's numerous paintbrushes and stored his non framed works in big shelvings which lean with the excess weight. But there is space on the bookshelves to accept some of dad's books 'Europe in the Seventeenth Century' , Toynbee's histories etc. Yes I managed to sell paperbacks at the car boot too. That made space!

The downstairs sitting room carpet has slices of duck tape stuck over it so we know where to position mum's all singing & dancing bed and hoist when they arrive. Our sitting room now has a trolley with various creams & potions on it - so it looks more like a sideward than a dining room - and the downstairs bathroom shines with its fresh coat of paint. Our bedroom cupboards house all the necessary bedding leaving the wardrobe at the top of the stairs for mum's things. Yes that was another major sort out.
We await the mini fridge - when it arrives it will go in the upstairs galley kitchen. Even our main kitchen has been organised today. Every cupboard cleared, wiped and replenished. I don't think one room in the house has got through August without a new lick of paint, furniture being moved in or out of it or some other sort of reorganisation. Roll on September. I need a change of pace!
Thank goodness we are in Devon soon - I need a good rest - so there will be no more blogs for a while. There will be no more moving of furniture either!

A room of one's own

Now that mum is living at my brother's he is having a new gas fire installed in one of his sitting rooms - so last winter was the last cosy coal fire in his house. But the change will give him family time and privacy when the carers are with mum or she's having physio.
We don't have a granny flat like my brother so I've had to create 'a room of our own'. Mum will be in our dining room - on an 'all singing - all dancing bed' next to her hoist and our new improved downstairs loo and shower room. Some stylish screens will give her some privacy.  Hopefully - in a practical sense - she'll have all she needs and she can watch the television with us when she wants to and share with us at meal times.
But we also need ' a room of our own' so I've opened up the small kitchen upstairs and created another little sitting room too. We now have a nice white toshiba flat screen upstairs, so we can watch the box while mum has a sleep. Friends have helped moved the bureau to the top floor in the house - so I can 'get back to my desk' as a couple of agents have said to me. Yes - I am still working on my novel - but researching and preparing rather than writing. After all - when mum is with us - I truly will need a 'room of my own' away from medical needs and television. It takes some planning! And mum's not coming to us until October!

Well done mum!

Mum is now out of hospital and living at my brother's. He has a granny flat - bedroom with shower room& loo, a  lovely sitting room and kitchen - and a hall lined with books - from Philip Hensher to Primo Levi. My brother has brought mum's TV and favourite box sets over to her new rooms.She no longer mentions the house which was her home for fifty years. It must be very hard to give up one's independence and home, to say nothing of making do with a paralysed left side. However she can see her grandchildren and her carers are very good. Mum is eating well and we hope to raise a glass for her birthday.
Next week is her ninetieth. There was a point a few months ago when I thought we wouldn't have her with us for the big nine-oh. But - fingers crossed - she'll just about make it! Well done mum!

The stooping figure of my mother ...

... wrote Laurie Lee in 'As I Walked Out...' He was born one hundred years ago but we were unable to join the centenary celebrations in Slad as mum was still in hospital.

Just like Laurie Lee, watching his mother wave to him as he leaves her, I have seen mum wave us off from her driveway,whenever we started our journey back home to Bath, on countless occasions over the years. Until twenty years ago both she and my father would stand in the space left by our car and wave us off. As they did so we would make our way past just seven houses either side of Nightingale Place, a pretty name for an address. Then we would turn out in to the lane and they would wave once more. As we turned and drove past the woods our car would have been out of sight to them - so just before that I'd see their hands make one final farewell gesture.
 
Laurie Lee's opening lines in 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'  always resonates with me - especially when I wave at mum who is herself waving us goodbye...
   'one gnarled red hand waved in farewell'
and for years I have wondered when the last time would come. When would I not see my mother waving us farewell?

It seems that time has arrived. She has waved us her last goodbye, from her driveway at least. Mum cannot go home again. I wonder whether she has said her goodbyes to her house - in her mind at least. She and dad moved there in nineteen-sixty - almost fifty-five years ago. It's a lot to give up.

Whenever I wave to her at hospital she is lying in bed and one hand rises above the bedcovers to give a weak wave. And still the words of Laurie Lee come into mind.

From now on I won't see mum as a stooping figure because she will be seated - in a wheelchair  - or lying in bed.

She did come out to the tea rooms with us on Friday - but in a wheelchair. That was her first time in a public place for almost three months. I don't know how she will feel about not being able to walk to the shops or to a cafe. I hope she adjusts to being wheeled out. It's a big  change when you're one month off reaching the great age of ninety.

Time will tell.

Move him into the sun

We are planning to see mum's physios and occupational therapists at the end of this week. They were hoping to get mum to stand longer ( supported) each day but fear she may have plateaued. We've all tried to encourage her to get into a wheelchair and go out into the sunshine. However I feel we have reached an impasse there too. Mum is tired and reluctant to do more, it seems. But, at almost ninety, perhaps it's too late to teach an old dog new tricks.

We find she's sitting out of bed a little more - perhaps that's the best we can hope for now. After all she can still read, listen, talk, eat and drink. And she still has a sense of humour! Perhaps these are more important than being pushed out into the sunshine.

I am reminded of Wilfred Owen's 'Futility' -  Move him into the sun Gently.
Or - as in the original - Move him into the sun
                                     Gently its touch awoke him once


Perhaps we should just let mum be. Sleep is what she wants now.

This hiatus - the stroke and its after effects - gives me time for reading and researching life for mum's contemporaries. Born in the nineteen-twenties this age group has seen much, spared the horror of the first world war, but thrown into the confusion of the second. Going through mum's photographs, in a weak attempt to begin moving her home to my brother's - so some sorting has to be done- has given me access to paraphernalia from between the war years. Just right for my novel 'Coming of Age'. However there has been little time for writing. Trying to keep our house and garden going, and doing the same at mum's house takes its toll. But the sun is warm, the weather glorious, and we've had time to enjoy it. Every July I'm keen to get out before the summer holidays leave Bath so crowded we can barely walk on the pavements. Plenty of swimming to do too.

Use it or lose it has never been more true.

So kind of people to continue to ask about mum. It's likely to be much the same now, I think. A chat, a glance at the paper, a drink and a joke, then a bit of a sleep. As long as mum's content then perhaps that's what we should settle for too.

So - an austerity march in London today. My collection 'Austerity and Other Cuts' is still relevant and, sadly, may still be relevant when I'm nearing the end of my novel 'Coming of Age.'
I've workshopped the first three chapters of 'Coming of Age' and am pleased with the feedback. It puts a spring in one's step when peers like your work.

Dorset was lovely - we've been lucky with our holidays in terms of weather and location. Beautiful cottages - so we booked again for September. These breaks give me thinking time and it's wonderful to people watch - all grist to the mill for a writer.

Off to see mum again this week. Hoping there might be news re: her care plan. She's sitting up longer each day - that's all good news, but we'll have to see how much measurable progress she's made. We can give my brother a break from hospital visiting too and find out if she's been in a wheelchair yet.

All very hopeful for the possible respite care we can have in place in Bath for mum but it's so difficult for a wheelchair on our steps - at least 12 of them. Help!