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The forecast is for a band of rain or snow moving SW across Northern Europe in the afternoon. Probably reaching us at about 6pm. Bad timing, considering my Friday waste container arrangements.
Not to mention the last month of continuous [record breaking] sunshine. The indoor temperature has dropped to 59F/15C overnight. So I shall have to light the stove again.
My wife appears to be sleeping with her eyes half closed and her mouth wide open. [As is usual, now she is on morphine] I am trying not wake her by going any closer. My increasing clumsiness [due to tiredness] and being deaf, with tinnitus in my left ear, doesn't help to hear her breathing. Besides that, I might start coughing involuntarily.
Every precious second of her sleep is an escape. Even if it means weird dreams. Though she asks to be woken when I get up. This would just mean a longer wait for the nurses or home help to arrive. They are coming at frequent but irregular intervals by rotation. They have all been very kind and clearly have a high level of competence. Several trainee nurses have been in company. Reality is a hard schoolmaster.
The bed sore on my wife's back is now being treated with a side pillow to offset the usual pressure points. One of the staff spoon fed her with a little tea yesterday evening. Which I made in a small china cup. She still likes the Organic British Breakfast Tea after trying several others.
6am and I had better go back down and check on her. I haven't heard a sound from her so far. I wonder if she can hear my wet coughing? She may hear my computer chair graunching as I rise. The gas strut went ages ago. Another charity shop find.
She woke as I approached and complained of her legs being raised. She had removed her wet nappy [adult disposable diaper] in the night and needed a replacement. Her voice is badly slurred but stronger and deeper today. Monotonic and strident. She refused apple juice to wet her mouth. I relit the stove but burnt my fingers on the grate. It retains its heat remarkably well deep in the ashes. Which I immediately cleared. Experience will avoid such foolishness. I have taken to talking to myself to avoid blunders.
My wife has relented. So I spoon fed my wife with tiny drops of apple juice. She seemed grateful but is still worried about her legs being raised. The fire is lit and going well. She doesn't like the smell but complained of being cold. I try to explain everything but then she resents my pedantry.
06.50. Eating my muesli upstairs as it becomes light outside. I can turn the outside lights off when I have finished. Another, hard, white frost on the grass. My wife has gone to sleep.
The chaos of my endless tidying and sorting looks worse than ever this morning! Every time I need to put something somewhere else there is already a pile of stuff sitting there. Double handling is becoming a trial. Yet the place still looks like a tip inside and out! I have no spare room to act as temporary storage. The stuff I have piled around me can't just be dumped outside.
I will have to take a break and use my brains for a change. Stacked some boxes. Clear bin bagged some full carrier bags of her knitting wool for the charity shop. This freed up some considerable floor space.
What do I want to achieve today? I nearly broke my neck on the stairs just now. Somebody had added an extra step at the top. Fortunately I was on my way up. Rather than going down.
Now I am using her old bed to stack all the duvets and pillows. They had all been tried as she became more sensitive to cold and the weight of her bedding. I am now using my own bed as a working surface. Went through all the towels in tubs and sorted them by size and age. The small, frayed ones can go straight to the shed as rags.
Now 61F indoors. [Open plan via the stair well so the main living areas benefit from the stove]. The antique, Jøtul, box stove was a huge horizontal box, but could never cope. We should have swapped it for a modern stove years ago.
We bought an upright Thermatech recently and it is absolutely amazing in comparison. One burn of two briquettes and the whole stove and house are warm. The soapstone on top and either side produce heat for hours. There has been no need to relight it. The large, curved glass door removes all doubt as to the burning conditions within.
We just had a nice picnic. First we wet her dry mouth with tiny spoonful's of apple juice. Then a few tiny pieces of the meat from a thawed out, British pork pie. We both agreed it was a bit dry. Though she could still get a taste of what she had been anticipating. She had cried when the parcel took 13 days to clear Broxit customs at both ends.
Then onto the thawed out, British brown bread. It was wonderfully soft. A few tiny pieces. Cut from a well buttered, quarter slice with plenty of Sandwich Spread. The bread was dry in her mouth. So we moved onto pure Sandwich Spread on a tiny egg spoon. She was taking the spoon and feeding herself. More apple juice to follow.
An assistant nurse has looked in and changed her nappy. Made her more comfortable. Though my wife is clearly slipping down the bed. Probably rolling on the added pillow underneath her. Put there to protect her from the bed sore on her lower back. She had some more apple juice and then fell asleep.
9.20 and 37F. The sun has come out. White clouds and the wind vane point to the approaching NE weather. Every surface outside was covered in white frost. I am having morning coffee and a toasted roll with marmalade. Deciding on my next priority. I have yet more cardboard boxes from the bedroom clearing to put outside.
10.10. Another wonderful nurse [Miss U] has just left. Years of experience show in every practised movement. Her perfect beside manner, communication skills, [in English] sympathy and empathy are provided freely in equal measure. My wife now has a pillow placed beside her. To tilt her gently off the sore on her back. Though she has always preferred to sleep flat on her back. The quiet skill of the nurse produced a calmness instead of increased agitation.
10.30 The sky is really darkening from the NE now. I had better return to tidying. I feel I should flatten all the cardboard boxes outside to compact them. If I leave them in box form they will be too weak when wet to be easily handled. There is nothing indoors which needs to be done immediately. I really need to work at something. To take my mind off the situation. I am also deeply ashamed how untidy the place looks now.
I went outside to do some therapeutic box crushing and tearing. The row of debris was halved in length and nested to much reduce the volume. I have dragged the black wheely bin the 100m to the main drive. Then used the sack truck to carry eight, full bags.
The chimney sweep rang to check how out new stove was behaving. He had demolished our old and leaky chimney earlier. Then installed the new stove indoors. Last week while my wife was in hospital. His charges must have been pared to the bone.
12.30 Another health visitor. She re-adjusted the side pillows to relieve the pressure on the bed sore on my wife's back. The doctor is coming at 8.10 tomorrow morning.
12.40. Black sky and hail! Followed by large blobs of frozen rain and then a steady fall of mixed snow flakes. It started just as I tidied the last bits of her packaging materials. So I retired indoors for lunch. A very productive morning!
1.40 Lunch. My wife was not impressed by the news of snow. She hates it!
1.45 Very heavy snowfall! The nurses will have to drive carefully! 62F indoors but it feels colder. I'm going to relight the stove.
That was weird! I just caused an explosion in the stove! It was going well. So I turned it right down. It glowed darkly and then the flames vanished. Then boom! The door flew open and the chimney inspection hatch plates blew off! Explosive gases must have built up in the stove chamber. Imagine if there had been nobody at home! The open fire would have been exposed to the entire area of the wide open door. The door is held closed by very strong magnets. Rather than the usual hand operated latch.
Another nurse looked in. Gone again. So I am going to have a shower. My wife said she needed a shower and to wash her face and eyes. I gave her face a very gentle wipe with a damp kitchen towel. The she dried her own face with a tissue. She has returned to a drugged sleep.
15.30 36F. There must be 50mm/2" of snow lying on cold, horizontal surfaces. It is slipping off more sloping surfaces. The washing is piling up. I had better make an effort. It used to be that I was never allowed to interfere with her laundry work. Now I am responsible for the laundry but poorly equipped to do so.
The ability to bounce even the most trivial questions off my partner has ended. I was always asking her if she had seen something I had lost. She had a remarkable facility for remembering such details. Her continuous presence and support has been a comfort for more than half a century. As was her ability to take the wind out of my sales when I had silly ideas. While still supporting me in the most outlandish projects. We made the perfectly balanced, oddball team. Yet argued endlessly from morning to night from day one.
Cooking has now been reduced to toast, pasties, pies. Eggs, soup, peas and beans. Wholemeal rolls were always a staple I enjoy. Toasted or fresh. Mature Cheddar cheese, jams, marmalade.
We ordered some Sandwich Spread and Branston Pickle from the British food shop. Typical of her foresight in giving me increased variety. I still have 11 mini pork pies to consume. Brown sauce will help them down. Provided I remember to thaw out the pies out overnight. Salads will seem far more attractive when the weather warms.
16.30. My wife continues to sleep with her eyes glazed and half open. Taking deep breaths at very long intervals. I am told this is typical behaviour under morphine. Her speech is almost completely incoherent at times. It has stopped snowing. So I have been out with the snow scraper. To clear a path to the door for the first nurses of the day.
While I am tempted to give my wife her proper name I prefer to protect her privacy. Such intimate details, as I have shared here, have no place on the internet. Not if I clearly identify her.
I usually referred to he as "The Head Gardener" on my triking blog. However that seems to trivialise her now. She was as obsessed with gardening as I am with all my own hobbies.
I have found her literally hundreds of seed packets and plant packaging materials during my sorting of her vast collection of "stuff." The number of her plant pots would astonish anyone except an avid gardener. She would make hundreds of pots out of the bottom half of milk cartons and other commonplace objects.
She loved the bees and butterflies she attracted to her plot. Though it wasn't a showy flower border in the more formal garden sense. She liked the unusual varieties of her favourite plants. Lately she was interested in growing tall, decorative grasses. Inspired by Piet Oudolf. She was an avid watcher of gardening programmes and YT gardening videos.
It is extremely unlikely she will ever see her garden in bloom again. After she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, she cried . She said she just wanted to see her flowers again. I am no gardener but will try to tend her plot as required. The giant trees which surround us throw deep and long shadows. She has constantly battled with the wind and Horse Chestnut Moths. Creeping weeds invade from the shelter belt to the west.
17.30. Yet another nurse visited her briefly. She said she will be coming back later this evening. I am confused by the sheer number of different faces. Is the entire staff visiting us in rota?
18.00 Another nurse arrived. She spoke perfect English and was
obviously intelligent. She agreed that my wife should not be dosed
beyond the absolute minimum necessary to keep any pain at bay.
I'm
afraid this empathy prompted me to unburden on the unfairness of it all. The
awful neighbours, the cruelty, the isolation, the overt racism. My tears
flowed copiously again. Not for myself but for the neighbours' sociopathic
treatment of my wife.
It would all have been so very different. What if there had been a
single other, human being, living within this hamlet over the last 25 years? How different could her life have been with pleasant company? Instead of pining for the unaffordable house near the sea? Endlessly collecting pointless packing materials. For the move which would never, ever come.
18.30 34F. I have relit the stove. A minor panic when I realized we had run out of kindling. Only to remember a quarter of a bag hiding in the greenhouse. That wont last long if the temperatures stay low. I wonder if the vendors can be persuaded to deliver the usual five bags? Which I usually collect in the car from eight miles away. An outing might suit them if I offer to pay.
20.30 33F. Dinner over. Had a long talk with my wife. Though it was very one sided. I told her how much I loved her and admired her and always had. How I had been a fool for not telling her how much I loved her every single day. She still managed to rise through the morphine fog to tell me to shut up!
She wanted something to eat but shook her head at every possibility. However absurd. She dozed off again without any supper. No matter how minute the portions. Not even a drop of apple juice to wet her lips.
I went out to lock the sheds and it was snowing lightly again. I scraped the path to the door again. To avoid problems for the nurses on the night shift. The outside lights are turned on to guide their way.
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