The Cockroach Cafe Mark 2 (general coping with oldies)

Macaroons as requested knot- shop bought. As I don't have dints mastery in the cooking department sadly....
So sorry you have to do so much. Dm keeps moaning about her hair but i wont go near......

Dint I'd go with baking parchment if you don't have one of the non stick baking sheets. I think you really ought to try for science and not just for additional macaroons.

I've cut mum's hair today. It needed doing for several months before lockdown started so it was well beyond the stage of needing attention. I won't be giving up my day job but it looks reasonable now. She is pleased with it and didn't take up my offer of a brown paper bag as day wear. I don't get mad with her because there is no one else but me to do what needs doing, I am frequently raging with my MIL situation because I feel put upon. She has actual family, children and siblings but lockdown meant that they couldn't possibly do anything. I have this special pass from Boris that means I can shop, clean, change lightbulbs, fix computers and washing machines and programme central heating and telephones. It's not as if they let just anyone care for the vulnerable. See, I'm off again. Please pass the macaroons.

I could just eat a macaroon now. I found a half packet of ground almonds in the cupboard and made a batch - first time in years, and they were so easy. They were wonderful. We managed to spread them over 3 days and the memory sustained me for a few more. Since then, ground almonds several weeks in succession were hit by "I'm sorry, some items are missing from your order...". Now I've got the almonds, and am puzzling what to do in lieu of rice paper. I'm not willing to try and make it myself.

I'm also realising the difference between gardening for fun, and gardening because you have a real need to fill in between deliveries, so that a germination failure or a spell of adverse weather at a critical point means no fresh veg for a week.

Dint I know that I would be impossible to shop for because this has brought home to me just how picky I am. For example there have been no dried chickpeas but plenty in tins. I don't want tinned, I want dried or put another way, I want what I've always had. You'd be getting the two items on your list that they sell in Aldi, the half jar of tahini on the shelf and the promise of the remainder with my next click and collect order.

I haven't bought rice paper in about 40 years, I could just eat a macaroon now.

Shopping is crap at the moment. We're shielding, but if I ask someone to get some shopping for me, I really can't give them a list beginning "cumin, ground almonds, rice paper, tahini". Yet those are some of the things that make meals interesting, and at the moment we need interesting meals to punctuate the weeks. And so I don't ask anyone (I'm lucky to be able to get online deliveries). One of the downsides of doing more than you are willing to do or can be reasonably expected to do is that it becomes impossible to spare a thought for how rubbish it is to be dependent on other people.

Hear you knot shopping in an unfamiliar shop in these strange times is even more stressful than normal.
You deserve a break. 🌺🌺

Morning all. One of the benefits of the current situation has been telepone appointments with the doctor, mum called on Monday and had a chat with the doctor within an hour. She has a referral to the memory clinic which I'm really pleased about because we've been ignoring the elephant in the room since March. In the before times this would have meant making an appointment and me taking her and would have taken at least a week.

Minor rant incoming - I am sick to the back teeth of doing shopping for other people. I'm not travelling across town to do my shopping in MIL's local supermarket, I am being totally unreasonable and doing my shopping in my local supermarket where I know my way around and can find everything. She's bored and wants to go shopping and that's her choice. My choice is not to take her. What I really need is to have a couple of weeks off and this be someone else's responsibility for a while.

Oh dint how frustrating- but sounds like he is doing ok? Yes, it does. He's now passed the 3 weeks mark.

flygirl good luck for this afternoon. That's a really difficult situation for you.

sinister What you're experiencing is not unknown. She's losing her grip on the world and trying to make sense of it in a way that doesn't call the working of her brain into question. So if it's a choice betweeen a) she's completely forgotten making a decision and b) you've done something against her will, she's going to go for b) every time.

It may be that her memory problems started before losing her husband, but the loss, in such a way, will have had a bad effect, and it will seem to her that it's only since her husband died.

It seem to me that you're not the right person to be helping her at the moment. She isn't trusting you, and the way she treats you is damaging your well-being. Sadly, the only way you will get someone else to take over is to walk away and sit on the figurative beach. But now may be the time that you need to do that. Please seek help, for yourself as well as for her.

Fly and sinister welcome to the cub no-one wants to be in...
fly hope the visit goes well...just say the doctors need to check you are ok etc... will be v hard but you know she is being cared for.
sinister sounds really tough- would she see a doc? sounds like paranoia.... please press for an appt and send the gp your observations in advance.

Hi Everyone, I posted on here when my DM was staying with me. We moved her into her house and things got better for a while but now they are worse. I do her shopping twice a week and am on call for every minor disaster. Her memory is worse, she rang me on her mobile phone last night to tell me she lost her mobile phone (meaning her mobile phone charger) so I went round to give her mine. This morning she has asked me to give her back the spare key to her house, because she suddenly doesn’t trust us. It follows a pattern that when I help her, like Wednesday when I took her shopping and to the bank and spent ages with her she will ring me up later and be very spiteful and mean, she even threatened to go to the police about me (because I helped her move money into her savings account earlier that day as she had wanted, rather than donate it all to some mythical charity she had just decided about). I’ve got two uncles, one is very supportive and available and understands what’s going on and sees her every week for a walk and a chat, the other is distant, hasn’t physically seen her since Christmas (and that had to be forced) and speaks to her on the phone, guess which one she trusts and goes to for advice? Yep, the distant one! She is in complete denial about her memory and says it’s “normal ageing memory loss”. She’s 64. She lost her husband, last year to suicide and says the memory loss is due to trauma, but it started before he died. She was also treating him like she treats me. I feel sick every morning and I snap at my husband and son all the time. I know she probably feels even worse but I really can’t cope with this. My dad has Huntington’s disease and I was his carer for 7 years before he went into a home, I know what direction life is taking me in. I know I can’t but I fantasise about driving away from all this down to a beach and just sitting there until someone else takes over.

Hello may I join in the chat? You may have seen I have started a couple of thread regarding the decline of DM who is now in a MH unit awaiting diagnosis after it all coming to a head on Tuesday.

I'm so shocked it has come to this, I honestly thought she would spend a couple of nights in hospital and then come home but as she refused to see the MH team, they had to section her (with my agreement) as they did not think she was safe at home.

I am going to see her this afternoon in the grounds of the hospital which luckily is very close to me. She is absolutely clueless that there is anything wrong with her so we are going to have some interesting conversations! She is 87 this year.

Oh dint how frustrating- but sounds like he is doing ok?

He's trying to drive me mad. 2.5 weeks with not a word from him, then I got the manager to stand over him while he dialled me and we had a good chat. The next day I missed a call from him, a few hours later he got through but put the phone down after saying hello03., yesterday he rang me to tell me he was in the middle of having his dinner (just as I was trying to cook ours), then half an hour later he rang again to tell me he'd finished his ice cream.

Fingers crossed dint

I spoke to df on phone last night. A bit confused, but cheerful. Still no symptoms apart from fatigue. It's 3 weeks today since he first tested positive.

How are you all doing? mere how is your df?
All calmish here..... touch wood.

Thanks, Rinse, that's good to know.

Dint both my friend and a work colleague have parents in same home recovering from testing positive nearly four weeks ago. In the last year the 87yo has survived cancer, has been paralysed by a stroke and now no longer speaks. Covid hasn’t adversely affected him. My friend’s DM, 86,is a little bit more mobile but has advancing dementia. She’s fine, too. My DM is in a different place which appears to have Covid back. Hoping it is the same strain if has returned.

Rinse I'm trying not to ring every day - they've promised to let me know if he develops symptoms. As far as I know, (as of Friday) he's still without symptoms. I'll ring later today and ask them to get him to ring me (he has lost the ability to respond to me ringing him, whether he doesn't hear it, or can't remember what to do, I don't know). Anyway, assuming he's still OK, it's day 11 from test.

"hairbrush" Dad was the same about airing - in his case, even after tumble drying. I'd return his washing neatly folded, with a label "clean washing 5th February 2019". He'd then strew it around the house over furniture and completely forget which items were clean, which were dirty and waiting for me to take them, and which he'd put aside for me to mend.

Good to see you nota and hairbrush
Understand completely about the garden centre joy and frustration with the elderlies comments.... how are things generally hairbrush ?
dint how is your df doing? Hope he’s ok. Very worrying times.
Dm keeps hinting for me to cut her hair.... no way......

Can I have a lighthearted rant please! My husband has recently repaired my long neglected clothes line so I have stopped using my tumble dryer for the time being.

I have just taken four loads of washing back to my mum and said just mentioned "Four loads of washing all freshly line dried!"

She glared at me and said "Oh dear! I'm going to have to air it!"

Is it wrong that I snapped and said "Mother! I am nearly 60 years old! I think I am able to decide if a load of washing is dry or not!"

Saw DM earlier, and had the obligatory conversation about why I haven't taken her to the hairdressers. They're shut. They can't all be shut? They are all shut. What still? Yes. When will they reopen? Don't know. Well I need a hair cut. Don't we all.

For the last couple of weeks I have been going to a garden centre on the way home from mum's, and have managed to get some nice bits for my hanging baskets - sadly it feels like the highspot of my week.

When I got home I managed to knock a glass bottle of tonic water flying, and realise that at some point today I have ripped a hole in my favourite summer shorts. Class act me.

Hope you are all doing well out there, and that your DF is doing ok Dint.

dint How is you DF doing? How many days is that now? Every time your mobile rings it must be difficult.

This will be the continuing pattern for the rest of his life. He will avoid going to the doctor because he leaps to the conclusion that whatever he has is terrible and he doesn't want to confront it, when it's something simple if treated early. Last 2 times it was a urine infection.

Sorry to hear that country that’s tough.
dint everything crossed.