Cockroach cafe 🪳 Spring 2022 🪳

Thankyou @TheIoWfairy. The poor bench must be groaning with the strain of us all. 🍰🍾 to anyone else that needs the comfort. I am binging a Chinese and quadruple chocolate biscuits tonight as apparently there 'is no food in the house' despite having online deliveries 🤔

Genius idea, @Mum5net !
@GreebosNanny, I’ve saved you a comfy seat on the bad daughters’ bench. You’re so right about the dementors - mine wants someone to adult for her but she also constantly insists that she wants to ‘be in charge’. It’s like dealing with a grownup toddler with independent means, infuriating.

That idea has really made me smile @Mum5net. They'd really enjoy winding themselves up into a right old state and bitching about how little their daughters do for them. That's if any of them actually listened to each other! 😂

I suggest all anxious and progressively isolated DMs should be put on a what’s app group together and left to chat to each other. It’s the only solution I can offer.

I've been lurking on this thread for a while now and am finding it tremendously comforting reading.

Father had a severe stroke out of the blue 3 months ago. Parents early 70's and wouldn't have been happy to be described as elderly before this. He's recently been discharged to care home as Insufficient carers available to support safe home discharge due to limited mobility. Severe aphasia so can't read write or articulate himself as he would wish currently but this is slowly improving.

I live several hundred miles away and have been visiting as regularly as I can. The biggest problem is mum not dad. I'm dreading this coming week with her. She undoubtedly has undiagnosed untreated anxiety issues and is emotionally immature and is socially isolated. I have worked very hard on boundaries as she has none and talks to no one else. I am turned to fix everything in Dad's absence and she is desperate for me to take over and adult for her. I am currently refusing to do this and am trying to support her to do things herself. She is currently like a catastrophising dementor.I feel like I am constantly in a state of high alert watching for the next attempt at emotional manipulation.

Wise ladies help me get through this next week visiting her without running away screaming like a banshee. Luckily my husband is coming to support me and this will help moderate some of her behaviours.

Thank you! I feel a tiny bit lighter from just the act of writing that down.

Sorry you've had a stressful time too :(

We are home now thank god but I actually feel ill from all the stress :(

I've got a mountain of washing to do, shopping arriving in an hour (minus the 3 items I really, natch..) and I just want to cry. How pathetic.

I'm sat waiting for the inevitable phone call about something she's forgotten or missed.

I'm not answering. Phones on silent 🤫

I'm sat here with the bedroom blind closed feeling dizzy and sick. Ugh.

She said she felt she had a "cold" this morning. After record breaking heat and temperatures? Sigh. She said the car seat was uncomfortable. Other than that she's said about 12 sentences the whole trip back (6 hours).

I find her utterly exhausting to be around.

I shall stop moaning though. I'm boring myself!! 😴

@Chevyimpala67 I feel your pain! Just back from my 'holiday', a break with my DM and DD. I drove them across the country and everywhere else. DM kept up a continuous narrative as I drove - politics, gossip about her friends I don't know, "do you remember...", etc. I can tell that she's lonely at home and enjoyed some company so I nodded a lot but, grief, i bit my tongue so hard that it's probably frayed.
As well as driving, I cooked, organised all days out, sorted tv and IT, acted as mediator between DM and my sulky teenager. I moved furniture to her satisfaction but I drew the line at painting the wall which needed a touch-up or sorting the jungle into a garden. 'I'm on holiday, sorry' wasn't well received, though.
Today we're back in our respective homes and my DH is doing everything so I can rest and recover - what a hero!

Hi everyone
I haven't rtft, sorry, but hope you are all doing OK?
I'm sorry about your fil @countrygirl99 x

It's been a while!

2 x trips to hospital via Ambulance recently - no idea whats wrong with her and the medics wont touch her because of all her comorbidities 🤷‍♀️ twice now the ED drs hsve requested a LP snd twice its been denied by the medical drs.

Shes now using a stick to walk but only for the past month or so. She's lost weight (she's 7 stone now)

It's the last night of my "holiday". Its a beautiful part of UK that I love, and we've missed the horrendous heat at least which I'm very grateful for but, Jesus Christ, Mum has ruined it for me.

I said after the last holiday we took her on (8 years ago, a year after dad dIed)...never again!.. why don't I learn!!??

She has no interests, no hobbies. She only watches crappy TV soaps and celebrity type shows. She just sits and never says anything. Conversation is like pulling teeth.

We hired a wheelchair for the holiday (with her agreement) which she has sat in twice for about 5 minutes. £100 well spent...

It's become clear that she can only walk for 5 minute bursts on flat ground. But she's in total denial about this.

She fell up the steps to the rental property on Tuesday and really banged her head. Refused to even let me ice it 🤷‍♀️

She's not really eating much (although has enjoyed fish and chips whilst here)

She refused to even come into to one place she really knew I wanted to go to :(

She's paid for 2 meals out whilst dh and I have paid for coffess, cakes, entrance to places, grocery shop...(she's well off)

Bought a gift for my golden bollocks brothers child today though..🙄

She spent all day one day in bed (which was nice actually as me, dh and dc went out)

I've hated it. Dh has been in an odd mood too so its all been on me...the organisation, planning, trying to feed everyone and keep everyone happy...

I'm exhausted.

There is no way in hell I'm taking her anywhere again.

Dh and the dc have done things and visited places whilst I've stayed here with mum. Glad they did.

But it's been awful for me and I just want to go home.

At least I won't see her til next week after tomorrow...

Sorry for the epic moan!
Love to all x

@Fantasea we have a date though it is somewhat later than we would have liked. Mind you that worked in our favour ad DS2s flight is 50% cheaper that week 😊.
The aggro had persisted through to the wake (awkward BIL given that job), we thought £40 per head was a tad too expensive! But that's sorted as well now.

The fun don't stop! After I made a mess of filling in mum's financial assessment which resulted in her contribution to her fees being twice as much as her income we finally got everything sorted and two weeks ago I received an invoice for her contribution going back to when she went into the home in October. Obviously a large sum but of course it was simple enough to pay because the money was sitting in her account and I can access her account easily. I paid it online as soon as the bill arrived.

The next thing I know I have just had a reminder invoice from the Council saying the amount is payable instantly. I took a screenshot of the payment from mum's account and they confirmed that it was indeed paid but the stress of wondering if I had put it into the wrong account!

@countrygirl99 I'm really hoping you've managed to book a date for FIL's funeral. We had this with the interment of my DF's ashes. He died in the March. My golden sister couldn't miss a day of work, then she had one thing after another and finally DM was 'allowed' to arrange it for just before Christmas 🙄.

My DM is hardly helping herself in her quest to move into my road, 4 doors down on the opposite side, without telling me, whilst plotting with the golden one. Today I rang to say the items I'd put on my Tesco order were 'ready for collection'. I'm so cross with her for her deceit that I'm no longer offering my personal delivery service lol. She said she'd set off right away. I watched her come up from the corner, pass my house and then stood for ages staring at my drive. Why? I seriously wonder if she's memorising my number plate so she can take the spying to the next level...

Just book a date and be done with it . If he isn't happy with it , apologise on his father's behalf at dying at an inconvenient time that didn't suit him !

DH is trying to organise a date for the funeral. One BIL is being a total arse and any date is no good for some reason. Somehow we are meant to find a date that doesn't mean he has to miss a day of work. This is the BIL who hasn't done a single thing to help care for ILs whereas DH, other BIL and his wife have all lost several days work dealing with emergencies, hospital appointments etc just this year let alone before. All are self employed so no work means no money. DH about to blow his stack.

Actually Minty it was lovely - I did an hour yesterday and it wasn't as awful as I had feared. The worst thing about it was that the bin bags I'd brought were my garden tidying bags and one of my malevolent cats had peed in them in the garden, which stinks....

Four bags to go to the food bank on Friday morning, and I'd posted on my local community FB page that her freezer was full of unopened bags of food and ready meals, and within half an hour I'd had a message from someone saying could she have them - just started a new job, three young children, husband's been made redundant - so that was lovely. Mum will be pleased with that too. Turns out it's a young family we actually know, which is a bit sad, because I'd not known they were struggling.

Panini press is going to my office where we will all have the use of it, likewise her plants, those that she doesn't want. DS wants to learn to play the saxophone, so that will stay here.
Found some of mum's old diaries and binned the bloody lot unread.

I was going to go over and see her this weekend but this bloody cold is just hanging around and it doesn't seem fair, even if I'm testing flamboyantly negative, to go and sneeze all over some frail elderly people. Bit sad that I couldn't find a home for the slow cooker but we have one already, so.

Know what you mean about the curmudgeonly old s*d @countrygirl99, my dad was the same. Hope it went smoothly this morning for DH.

Sorry for your loss @countrygirl99 ...I hope all goes as best it can for your DH this morning. It's a horrible thing to have to do in any circumstances.

@MrsRussell good luck with getting everything sorted. Could you just go and collect the food for donation and personal effects and then, as you say, skip everything else or get a house clearance firm in? Don't forget to arrange to do something nice for yourself (with your phone off) once it's done!

Just checking in to say hello, and hugs for those who need them at the moment, especially @countrygirl99 .

DM's house sale finally and suddenly went through while I was out of the country on holiday. It has left me feeling very sad, not least of all because of the amount of things I had to take to the dump in the end having spent weeks trying to sell or give things away.

She was back in hospital at the weekend, following what the care home called 'a funny turn'. For the first time it was DB that had to do the answering of questions about her meds etc, rather than me. So we are firmly in the next phase of this part of her life, and I am not at all comfortable with stepping back (but I will stay stepped back, as I recognise that is my conditioning talking.)

@countrygirl99 thinking of you all

I’m so sorry@countrygirl99. 🌺🌺🌺
such a hard thing for dh to have to do.

Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts. He was a stubborn, cantankerous old sod but it's going to be quiet without him to moan about

DH is going to the home in the morning to tell her. He's dreading it but much better that yhsn a member of staff she doesn't really know well. Of course the rise in cases means visits are limited to one person so he had to do it alone.

💐 @countrygirl99

@countrygirl99 I am sorry, all endings are hard. At least MIL was settled before this happened, easier for all that way rather than trying to sort that at the same time as FIL's death.

Oh @countrygirl99 I am so sorry.

@countrygirl99 So sorry 🌺

FIL has gone.