The Cockroach Cafe Mark 2 (general coping with oldies)

Hello nora ! The grimms are the gift that keeps on giving, aren’t they?
Leave it to the solicitors... and hope you get it sorted.
How are you? And your dm?

I'm back with more tales of the brothers Grimm. So the day before yesterday the sale of the first of my mother's properties finally went through after more than a year on the market and the death of her husband and her move to a care home. The sale was completed on wednesday. I got a text from one of the brothers yesterday saying he was going to take the fridge and dishwasher and he still has keys.
The flat was sold as seen, (the Grimms had tried to charge extra for the white goods but the buyers did not want to pay for them. Grimms have had a year to remove them.
I replied to the text saying flat was sold yesterday, please return keys to the estate agent immediately. I received a torrent of abuse telling me they have the right to enter and take the goods and I need to contact my solicitor. Jeysus these men don't get it do they? They cannot just let themselves in surely?
Solicitor says "leave them to it, you have discharged your duty". I'm actually just a bit bemused at their sense of entitlement that they think they can waltz into someone else's home and take stuff.
It does not bode well for selling the other place which is not selling because it's overpriced. I just want these twats out of mine and my mother's lives.

Plus ca change.

(For those wondering who the bros Grimm are... they are the grown up sons of my mums deceased husband- no relation to me).

dint it's good to hear that he offically has the all clear and it's really good to hear that he managed a phone conversation. I hope they sort out the anaemia, a run of good news would be lovely.

dint that’s so good to hear- you must feel relieved although anaemia must be a worry. So glad you had a good conversation with him. He sounds amazing.
cockroach all..... yolo where are you mate?

Hello sandwich Thanks for asking. My df has survived Covid - after two positive tests back in May with no symptoms apart from fatigue and loss of appetite, he has now been declared clear. But now they're worried about his anaemia which has sunk to a new low and could be indicative of all sorts of things. But they've taken on board that he wants to see his 100th birthday, and they're doing tests to see what is going on. He's agreed to take iron tablets, and I had a coherent phone conversation with him a couple of days ago, which was lovely!

Hello all.
country that all sounds really hard. Hope he is on the mend.
nota and knot hope things are as ok as possible- and mere how is your df?
All calmish here... hoping to get dm out to a garden centre tomorrow.... a very small v open airish one.....

I've just had 2 weeks off work. It's been a very strange fortnight all round.
FIL had holiday booked for early June. Obviously it didn't happen and he is having problems getting his money back. He paid 100% on booking by debit card. DH keeps telling him to phone his bank to see if they can do a charge back but he has an endless list of reasons why he can't. DH suggested he phone while he was there but apparently be needed to make a cup of tea for MIL so couldn't right then.
DS2 was due to marry mid June and emigrate to Finland today. Last Thursday we finally got confirmation they could marry 2 days ago so I had to turn florist and make the bouquet and buttonholes. There were just OH and I as witnesses and post ceremony activities included a trip to the dump! At least he can wave a marriage certificate to prove he is family of a returning Finn and not years of tenancy agreements and bank statements.
DF has been poorly. He is 93 with arthritis and osteoporosis that cause constant pain. The pain was severe with extra swelling and he could only get a phone appointment with his GP who adjusted his anti inflammatory drugs. Except the problem was a UTI that has triggered septic arthritis. He ended up in hospital overnight and came home with serious antibiotics. They don't seem to be having much effect and he has been back and got even more antibiotics. DM is struggling even more since lockdown with memory and understanding change . So we ended up last week with an early morning conversation that went "the hospital have said your dad has sepsis" (cue major panic, thankfully she got it wrong) while insisting she hasn't managed to speak to anyone at the hospital. Yesterday she was in a bad mood because he didn't rush to help her put away the shopping (milk, bread and biscuits).
I shall be glad to get back to work.

Surely as you shed hair all the time it's no less hygenic having it cut then having it fall out naturally?

I would blame the rosemary's decline on the wet spring, they prefer it hot and dry. I had one that had thrived on neglect for thirty years and the moment I put it in a new pot with better soil it died.

I've been doing DM's back garden for years now (she was a keen gardener in her time, whereas I am a rank amateur). She was very proud of a large Rosemary she had near some steps, and would often talk about it. It's now dead. I have dragged it's corpse to a corner of the garden that she can't see from the house, and now of course she has noticed that she can no longer see it. If I fess up, she will add it to the list of things that I Do Wrong. There is another Rosemary in another part of the garden that I might misdirect her to.

Lovely lady mobile hairdresser is due on Tuesday. DM doesn't like having her hair cut in the house, says it's unhygienic. I have no idea how it will play out. Garden shears may be involved if she refuses the hairdresser.

knota so sorry to hear about your dm. Hope the reappearing rellies are more help than purely ornamental.look after yourself.
mere sort to hear about your ds. Really tough times for so many. Fingers crossed.
All ok so far here... got dm out briefly which poleaxed her. Now that she almost can, she’s not really up to it.....

I had an actual conversation with people I'm not related to yesterday, it was lovely. It was just a pity that it was with an ambulance crew. DM appears to have not done as much damage as I first thought but we've no idea what she's fallen over. The difficulties in taking two paracetamol every four hours is really throwing a spotlight on her cognitive decline. She can do the things she can do but ask her to do anything new and it's futile.

Still all OK here. Just had long chat with GP over my dad's problems which I've described elsewhere, which was encouraging in the circumstances. DS1 has had the to-be-expected "we're thinking about redundancies" letter. Otherwise, with a shielding DH, life hasn't changed a lot - we'll certainly not be heading to the pub this weekend!

I am enjoying the return of the relatives. It's been a one Knitter production for the last millennium or however long it's actually been but relatives have made an appearance this week for which I was genuinely thankful.

Is yolofish still on mn ? Haven't seen her name on any posts for awhile, or perhaps just a name change.

Quiet is good - on this board at least!

Evening all.... hope everyone is as ok as possible.
V quiet here!

nota , fly , sinister to you all

nota so sorry to hear about your ds- no wisdom possible but lots of sympathy.
And your dm- sending buckets of Teflon to apply to your shoulders to help you through.
dint Glad you are feeling better- sometimes saying the stuff helps even to some internet strangers. Glad you have supplies on their way.
cockroach all.

Morning all. Things with DS continue to descend through the circles of hell. Hard to keep count of which particular fresh hell we are in currently (his bipolar is not in check as his meds aren't working). Getting help from the mental health team at the best of times is hard, but under lockdown it's non-existent.

DM continues to rumble on. Because of the dementia her mind resets very quickly, so in a half hour visit this week when I took some shopping over I had why won't I take her to get her hair cut, and why aren't I concerned at the fact I'm overweight, both on repeat.

Last night I succumbed to a school night vodka, only to be woken at 4am by DS cooking himself dinner, so I was loading the dishwasher at 5am and am due to start work at 9.

Cockroach all x

Rinse That's so kind of you! Actually I'm OK now, and the only thing I haven't managed to get is the rice paper. Morrisons where we are is pretty good, and I'm maintaining good stock levels, so that if I'm searching for tahini it's because I've opened the last jar, not because I've used the last spoonful of the last jar. But it does of course mean that my shopping list never looks like what people would regard as "basics".

And although I muffed my order and had a two week gap, my next delivery is Tuesday - that's only a few days now.

Dint. My food shopping here is 99% unaffected. Very happy to get you all your offbeat tasty items and sending them on a 24 hr box. I’d be missing those things too.
Was in Waitrose today and no queues. None at Lidl either. Genuine offer.
My friend whose Mumsnet law 86 had Covid got to meet her last week by sitting on a bench outside in garden while MIL was 3m away still inside care home. All wearing masks. Apparently it took about 10 minutes for recognition but after a slow start Mum in Law started to respond. Difficulty was hearing each other.

I am sorry dint, it is hard when the time that you need your friends to prop you up is the same time that they need you to prop them up. You could still talk to them you know, my friend was horrified to find what I'd kept quiet about when I knew that she was having Issues. I didn't want to add to her woes but actually she would have been glad of having something else to think about.

Long term symptoms after "recovery" are a known thing irrespective of age, your search term would be long tail covid. I know people in their 40s who are run down with niggling come and go symptoms months after they were "better". It's not necessarily a sign of irreversible decline, it could just be that he's not yet fully recovered.

Thanks sandwich. It has already helped, just to say how I'm feeling. In a way I've lost so much of him already, I didn't think it'd worry me when I lost the rest. But I'd love to go and give him a hug and a kiss just now.

Oh dint I’m sorry. It must be so sad to hear that about your dad. He sounds like such an amazing man.
Sending 🌺🌺 to you.
Talk here if it would help.

No cooking mastery here - macaroons are simple, I was surprised they were so easy, if I'd known that I'd have been baking them weekly for the past 30 years.

Feeling a bit tearful this evening. Though it was the succession of phone calls and emails from three separate friends who are going through combinations of horrors, followed by a more than usually incoherent phone call from my father. But realise it's actually the talk with one of the nurses who says he's gone downhill, she thinks the Covid has really taken it out of him and he's lost his independence of spirit - he let her shave him. I think losing him has suddenly become more real, and it's upsetting me more than I thought it would.

I don't want to talk to DH and DCs, because he's important to them too. And at the moment I'm a bit short of friends who don't already have their own problems. Early night and teddy bear, I think.