🪳 Cockroach Cafe 🪳 Autumn 2023

@juneday thanks for that suggestion. I’ve looked into meals on wheels and my local council do provide this service, and it’s just a little more expensive than M&S ready meals! I’ll talk to my Dad about it and maybe try a couple of times per week.

I thank all of the group, especially the person who changed my thinking about addressing his care needs.

God bless you all.

In this area a voluntary group provides meals on wheels three days a week in partnership with a couple of local cafes. It costs about £6 for two courses and the volunteers are lovely and have a quick chat. Unfortunately in recent weeks mum is usually eating the pudding and forgetting about the main, which while I am grateful, the quality isn’t great. There are rarely fresh vegetables and the mash is reconstituted and not nice. Personally I wouldn’t eat them either unless I was desperate. And mum wouldn’t be capable of defrosting/cooking meals.
When my granny needed Meals on Wheels twenty years ago they were provided by the local authority, lovely hot fresh meals cooked in the school kitchen and delivered by the WRVS. Those were the days! What went wrong I wonder 🤣

@StrandedStarfish
@WhatHaveIFound
In solidarity - we are still in the midst of DB visit from abroad. From my DM perspective it is disappointing as she had really been looking forward to seeing him and his family but they have been out and about, leaving her to provide b&b and ££. From my perspective it has been very much as expected - and I'm dealing with the fallout, of course.

The last conversation I ever had with my mum was bemoaning the terrible food she was getting in hospital. I never imagined a conversation about hospital cheese sandwiches would be the last time we'd hold a two-sided conversation

I tried private companies for meals on wheels including Wiltshire etc and they replied not in MiL postcode. Bought lots of small microwave meals and chopped up salads and fruit etc. She went into home after 6 months of this, the Carers weren’t great at presenting food and much got binned, she lost weight.

We realised after she was home that the issue with hospital food was dementia related, no one helped her fill in the form so she must have just scribbled at the top which explains why she had the exact same meal every day…. She lost weight and became very dehydrated, because she struggled to sit up and eat so we would try and visit at tea time. She couldn’t lift the jug of water, this led to UTIs annd low BP, she was put on a drip. UTIs when care at home too.

She has put in weight at nursing home, good food, lots of help and regular tea and water offered. M No UTIs since she has been in the nursing home. 🤞. Really patient care, and she is not being easy, so grateful for the staff of the nursing home.

When MIL and FIL were at home they got meals on wheels, delivered warm. For some bizarre reason they didn't label the plastic tubs. Instead the delivery person recounted that day's choices: "fish pie followed by rhubarb crumble and custard" or chicken in mushroom sause followed by steamed sponge pudding".

Disabled and deaf MIL couldn't walk to the front door, and couldn't hear what the delivery person said. FIL with dementia received the food at the door but by the time he reached the kitchen he'd forgotten what the delivery person had described. The result being that PILs had no idea whether they were eating chicken or fish, or indeed cheese sauce or custard!! No wonder they weren't keen.

Certainly not the experience my dad had last year and although there were notices up advising against visiting patients at dinnertime, if I hadn't been there he wouldn't have eaten anything.

I think it's been variable across the board for a good while now. I had meals on wheels for a few months myself when I literally couldn't safely carry food across the kitchen to microwave or prepare it. Around the same time a permanently disabled friend tried to get them when she was similarly incapacitated following an op, and her LA only delivered frozen meals. Useless if the client doesn't have the physical or mental capacity to prepare them, or remember to eat them.

"I was impressed with the hospital food when I was in for a week a few years ago"

I've never had a problem with hospital food when I've been admitted. There's always been a choice, there's always been a decent sized portion, and considering it's mass catering, it has always been nicely cooked. In my experience, having worked in schools, hospital food is more varied and more healthy than school dinners.

I was impressed with the hospital food when I was in for a week a few years ago - really tasty, sensible portions and a good variety of food available.

It sounds like it's very varied now. The county concerned provides the helpful information on its website that many supermarkets offer online deliveries!

Or suggests seeing if a local pub or restaurant delivers!

Not needing it yet but I thought I'd look around to see what's available.

I think meals on wheels is a very regional thing now.

I used to volunteer in the school holidays to help our local wvrs prepping the meals in the kitchen of our local community centre. I was a whiz at whipping up a huge bowl of smash and scooping it into the containers. I’ve just realised it wouldn’t be allowed today - I did no training whatsoever!

My mum still gets meals on wheels at lunchtime, they bring it in and plate it up for her.

Has meals on wheels almost universally been replaced by Wiltshire Farm Foods and microwave meals now? I was looking into it for my Mum as I thought she'd have someone dropping in to deliver each day so she'd see someone but it looks like that's not the case.

@StrandedStarfish that is dreadful lack of empathy on your brothers part. And for your father to be so upset it’s very sad. I am sorry. Try and find some help that you and your father are happy with so that you can have a break. There may be a charity, my mother in law used to get a befriending visit that helped a little - i couldn’t find meals on wheels but I know some areas have them as a friend volunteers once a week in a neighbouring borough, she doesn’t just dump the food and run, there is time for a little chat. Both or either might allow you to give yourself that time off for a much needed treat. 🤞

You have my sympathy as my DSis is just the same. She just swans in, creates havoc, upsets my mum and leaves. Dad even offered her money for plane tickets the other day when he never offers me anything whilst I do all the running around.

Thank you all. I think I did post earlier about my worries. My brother lives in another country and came home for Christmas.

My brother is offended that I spoiled his holiday. I’ve explained that I don’t get a holiday. I go to work, then I go to care for my Dad, and then I go home to bed. He scoffed at me. All I wanted was to dress up and go out for dinner with my husband, or just go home from work and put my feet up.

My brother told me that one sandwich a day is a reasonable diet for a man in his 80s That I worry about him being lonely. unnecesarily and that he needs to just get used to being on his own. My favourite is that I shouldn’t make him walk or ‘force’ him to attend exercise sessions with the physios

He’s gone home with a lot of money and my Dad has brought all his treasures to our house so that my brother didn’t take them.

My Dad has cried for three days as he thinks he will never see my brother or his children again.

I can’t win

Family history and dynamics are tough to navigate and more so when elderly parents etc have dementia and age related issues@ . Sorry to hear @StrandedStarfish, it’s hard to know what to say or do.

I know I have to learn to bite my tongue as my parents age, both say some odd things, I tend to have more sympathy with DM, DSis more with DD, DB between the two but looses patience a little quicker although he can turn it to humour more easily than I can. MiL now so confused she doesn’t register a two way conversation is taking place. DH managed a 10 minute visit to nursing home before it became pointless - sad but realistic.

@StrandedStarfish My brother is similar.

Whenever he sees my DM he ends up "flouncing", is quite vile to people, cuts people off and then very slowly gets over it & feels incredibly guilty. He wants to make amends but the same thing happens all over again.

Maybe I'm making excuses for him - he has very bad mental health that has its roots in my DM's controlling and emotional abuse in his childhood (me and DSis have same). I see him as becoming very mentally overwhelmed when he's with DM - she still thinks she can say & behave as she likes without consideration of other people's feelings.. It is very upsetting for everyone concerned and the only answer in my family's case, is to keep DB and DM at arm's length from one another.

StrandedStarfish, did you post before Christmas that he was coming? If that was you, I'm sorry your fears were realised, in such an upsetting way.

My brother came home for Christmas. I asked him to take over some of the caring duties while he was here so I could just have a break. He has engineered a whole scenario and family argument which has ended with him putting his hands on my daughter. He has now flounced off saying he won’t be back. He did the same when Mum died

The loser here is our beloved father who adores his son

Thank you all. And god bless ‘the Xmas jigsaw’. Cuts down on the same question for the millionth time!!

Scream as loud and as long as you need. No judgement here.

We have cotton pads that you can bite on while you scream if it helps. I'm sure there are some fresh ones in the cupboard even though they have been in frequent use recently.