The second new shiny 2019 thread ...

Hello all-too much to comment on, what with probate, tv licences, torches etc and cats ashes.....
Just want to say hi and extend good wishes to all.
yolo so good your mums house has lovely new residents.
dint how is your dad doing?
need lovely to see you!
And a rousing Cockroach all

needmoresleep cross post

yes, the licence fee thing is awful IMHO.

one of mum's friends was saying she is worried that bus passes will be next.

as for "policy" - I feel as if there is no policy for helping the elderly! I feel like there's no sensible social care in place at all.

also there's no joined up thinking or even database linking in systems. My late father had a friend 15 years older. She ended up in hospital many times before ending up in a care home. She had no relatives and he was her closest friend. She didn't sort PofA till she went into the home, unfortunately.

so every single time he went to see in her hospital, we ended up with a rigmarole of "is he family, is he allowed to see her" etc. I'm sure some of this was about skin colour, but it seems pretty basic that an elderly person - or maybe anyone? - who is known to the district nurse or whatever, should be able to have a named person who can visit them in hospital without getting a million suspicious questions every time.

Yolo oh 8 weeks isn't too bad.

I understand the thing about the ashes and what to do with them.

mum put a lot of thought into it but I just thought, dad was gone IYSWIM.

mum paid dad's funeral costs upfront as it seemed less hassle than linking up with the solicitor - I don't really remember it tbh but couldn't funeral directors be waiting for literally yonks if they are waiting on the estate?

I don't want to raise it with mum really but it has occurred to me that things will be different when she is gone - we would have to do things like clear the house, probably need a skip. I had to go round the house repairing some of her ancient chairs - I was really alarmed that she has her wobbly friends round and sitting on those chairs!! I swear some things like bookcases will just collapse if someone attempts to move them.

She might go in a retirement flat next year but I think it will be a shock to her to lose the space. She's still thinking it over. Also I don't think she realises how noisy a block of flats will be in comparison to a house.

Hello to all. After a decade of elderly parents, you can guess why my user name, I felt quite burnt out so ducked of this thread, despite the wonderful support I have had in the past.

I came back really to rant about license fees, though spot several familiar names so wanted to say hi.

DM turned 90. She is fit as a horse, albeit with no memory. She may well outlive me.

Very largely due to a fantastic carer, she is still in very sheltered housing. Which means she will need to pay for her TV licence. It also means that she saves the state a lot of money.

She is financially ok, but many of her neighbours clearly have to watch every penny, ducking out of the optional meals or entertainment in order to save a few pennies.

I reckon my mothers monthly outgoings are around £2,800 as she needs quite a lot of propping up. I assume her position is not unusual as age brings increasing disability. She is very independent so her sheltered housing provides her with a far better quality of life than she would in a home. Not that many, even middle class, elderly will have that sort of income. And many, like my mother who could well live another decade, will be seeing their savings diminish rapidly.

I really worry for her neighbours, and for those other elderly people, clinging on to their independence who have no financial slack. TV is a godsend for a 90 year old. Yet at £156, it could easily mean a choice between heating, food or the loneliness that not having a TV would bring.

A lot is said about affluent pensioners, but far less about those who are just about managing, as their hard earned pensions and savings are eaten up by the cost of self-funding their increasing care needs. Nor about people like us who contribute unpaid time and energy to helping them keep it all together.

My guess is that the £156 might be the final straw for many. There are only so many cut backs you can make. More deaths through cutting back on essentials, more having to move to care homes, or a real loss of quality of life. Isnt there supposed to be a policy of helping people stay in their homes for as long as possible?

The cost of Gary Lineker's salary will be very high indeed.

Rant over...cockroach to all.

hi rosa we finally got the more complex form agreed by HMRC, now we wait for probate - and mum's solictor (who is a fucking weasel) said exactly the same as you have. The good news is that our buyers are now renting the house so when we finally get probate - weaselface says 7-8 weeks - we can exchange and complete on same day. We are so lucky to be in this situation, and they absolutely love the house and have already started replacing carpets etc (much needed).

re funeral costs, ours are still waiting to be paid as bill is with solicitor. Ofc we dont get her ashes til they get paid...! OTH I dont know what to do with them anyway, DB has some bizarre idea of taking them to Ireland but I dont want much truck with that - he can if he wants to. They just seem a bit irrelevant to me. Having said that, I finally disposed of a cat's and a hamster's ashes which had been in a kitchen cupboard for about 10 years with a casual 'goodbye' as they went into the bin!

yolo weird!

have you got probate yet, if you don't mind me asking. I heard that there were huge delays to it at the moment. It looks like government cuts in disguise - sorry to be political - but much vaunted new computer system, lots of redundancies, staff remaining struggling to cope. I read in a business journal and it sounded like a big faff.

I get very confused about house sales and probate, there's one on my street that's been sold but is waiting for probate, does that mean they have actually exchanged?

I sometimes think we should delicately ask for mum for funds to put aside for funeral. One of my friends has been unable to sell the parental home a long time after their passing and has to pay council tax on it now I think.

Bizarre dream last night - both my parents had come back to life, or never really been dead (that Bobby Ewing in the shower moment) and were absolutely furious that we'd sold the house!!

Still waiting for response re my complaint to the hospital.

I notice this week is Carers' Week

someone on Twitter pointed out, quite rightly, that a lot of it is about networking and it's useless for anyone who can't get away because they are a carer!

Thinking in terms of elder care, what do we need? Was social care better before? How do we lobby for better pay for carers, given the generally insane way our economies run?

Or are we just screaming into a void?!

I spend half a day with mum today, had to take her for an important appointment or we'd not have ventured out in this weather. It's exhausting. I don't know how carers do this.

Mere but are you 80 with atrial fibriliation and a lot of associated wobbliness, plus balance issues? I'm guessing no.....

Yolo your mother sounds like my kind of woman. I have 3 in my small flat!

nota big hugs, time to look out for you for a bit, even with all the shit going on, could you carve out a day somewhere, or even two half days? xxx

torches made me laugh - clearing out mum's house I found 27!! even DB stopped saying 'oh a torch, I'll have that, they're always useful'!!

Thanks for the support all.

To be fair to DM, she is only a part of the stress. My DS's mental health and behaviour has been a cause for great concern over the last year or so. It has been truly terrible. I don't know when he will come out of the other side, but one consequence is that we have to move house, so on top of everything else, we now need to put the house on the market, remortgage, etc.

I bought mum a really good torch for upstairs and downstairs btw. It has 3 different light bits on it. I think it was from QVC.

she was a bit "what's wrong with candles in a power cut" and I just muttered something about the 21st century!!

nota please listen to the wise ones on here- you must put your health first. Get a gp appt, hair appt- and consider what help you can get in for your dm.
🌺🌺
cockroach all...

monkey you poor thing, that's awful to have a lurgy going for so long.

is there any way you can cut back on visits to your mum? My mum would have someone else in to do those jobs before getting us all stressed out.

re middle age - no, when I was in my 20s i remember living in a place where it was an absolute battle to find out how to change the light bulbs. I posted on every internet forum I could find, asked all the neighbours obviously - the letting agent didn't know, the landlady didn't know because she'd never lived there!!

Thanks Rosa maybe it's a middle age thing as I also now struggle with child proof locks on things!

Face is still quite sore, I have to remember not to rub my eyes when tired.

I do wonder what has been going through my colleagues' minds all week when I have sat across them in meetings!

I have had a cough/cold on and off since Christmas. Clearly I am massively run down. Missed my last hairdresser appointment as I couldn't bear having to make small talk so generally feel and look like shit. With the addition of the shiner I look in the mirror now and there is no mistaking the hellion looking back!

monkey oh I'm sorry, what a nightmare! Why does it take a flipping PhD to buy light bulbs these days, and superhuman eyesight to figure out where light fitting screws are? Drives me nuts.

is your face okay, hope it doesn't hurt any more?

I think the phrase for what I am currently is sandwich carer, but TBH, shit sandwich carer would be more accurate.

Visited mum last weekend and did a bit of gardening. Went in the bathroom to wash my hands and noticed a candle in a saucer. The lightbulb had gone, so she was lighting candles when she used the bathroom. Nothing to worry about there!

DM's light fittings though were designed as instruments for Mensa tests. The one in her bathroom is heavy glass held on by three tiny screws that you can't actually see, whilst you are perched on the top of a step ladder.

I got the fitting off, and the new bulb in. My DM tends to stand right next to me and fuss while I am doing things (mostly because she doesn't think women are capable of doing 'technical' things, which of course spurs me on to do them). However, when I put the light fitting back on, lifted my hand away to check it was on ok, the damn thing fell off, hitting me in the face, before crashing to the floor. Amazingly it didn't break (my face helped break its fall I think). Cue my DM berating me for not being able to do anything right.

All week I have had a black eye, and - as an aside - it took until Thursday for someone (a man at work) to ask if I was ok.

Le merde continue.

whatever you are really welcome to vent or howl at the moon.
So sorry you had such a crap day.🌺🌺

sweetheart... that sounds like a horrible day

Thank you so much. Just sorry not been on here much to support others but soon come running back when things here kick off again 🤦‍♀️. Survived today thankfully despite rather loud sobbing outburst that made the estate trustee rather uncomfortable. Just so sad to see the sad state of a house that had once been so happy and to know this was my last ever chance to spend time there was very hard. Anyway trying to look ahead , that book is closed and I need to be thankful for my own family. Also visited DF today and he has slipped further into dementia and blissful ignorance about all that is happening.

whatever the biggest handhold and huge hug from me - I hope it was as ok as it could have been. I spent months clearing mum's house and honestly it was very therapeutic... cant imagine how it would have been if I was in your situation, so I send you very much love. can we help at all, even with venting and trying to talk you through? xx

Oh whatever a hand to hold from me. I am so sorry- you have been through so much.
🌺🌺vent here if we can help.
cockroach everyone in the trenches.