Hello! I didn’t intend to be away for so long…in fact most of my intentions have flown out of the window this month and keeping up with the blog is one of them.
When I was last here, I was off to the South Coast for a few days with the family. Any time away from home is fraught with complication because of having to make sure that everything is in place for someone to take over my role in caring for my mum, so I don’t actually go away very often at all, and never for more than a few days.
To be fair, my mum really appreciates this fact, and is always very keen to reassure me that she will be fine, nothing will go wrong, and to have a lovely time.
So the last Friday in August saw us wandering around the gardens at Great Dixter, me with my camera in hand, enjoying some peace and relaxation. And then my phone buzzed with my sister’s ringtone and there was a message…’Where is mum? The house is all locked up and we can’t see her’
(To put you in the picture, my mum is very disabled, can only just walk round the house and has to have a lot of assistance to get out through the door.)
Of course the phone signal was poor, my battery low and it took a panicky gallop back to the car to plug in before I could respond, which I did by phoning my mum, because it couldn’t be true could it? It was all a mistake and she’d be sitting in her chair like always. But her neighbour answered, and yes it was true, they were in the house, the bed was made, the washing up done and there was no sign of mum…
And I was miles away in Sussex…
Several phone calls later we had established that she had been taken to hospital and had a broken ankle after slipping off her bed in the night, thank goodness for the alarm button she was wearing round her neck, and the help of the people who turned out in the night to help her and call the ambulance. (Which arrived so quietly that the neighbours didn’t hear a thing!)
And the one thing in her mind was ‘Don’t tell Penny, it will spoil her holiday!’ I can’t believe that I had been out of the county for less than 24 hours when it happened.
She apparently thought she had sent a text to my sister from the ambulance but a combination of shock and a bumpy ride meant that it disappeared into the ether, rather than getting delivered. Her first response to me when I sent her a message at the hospital was a text to say ‘I’m really cross you found out!’
I didn’t rush home( I would have been told off!) she was safe and cared for at the hospital and we returned as planned on the Sunday having had our lovely family time, albeit a little subdued.
But now I’m spending a lot of time behind the wheel, visiting her in hospital which is about 3/4 of an hour away. All things considered she is doing well, it was a clean break and while there were a few bruises they have nearly gone. There is a huge question mark hanging over the future now because her ability to cope living at home was getting increasingly problematic even before the fall…
While I usually try to keep Planet Penny an upbeat place trying to pretend that big things aren’t happening in the real world would make things fake, and that isn’t what I want just here so that is why I’m posting about it.
Now you know I hope you will bear with me if things are a little erratic. This was the quiet (ish) slot in the year for which I had booked in my Photocraft Course, which is great, but very intense.
I have this stuck up on my wall…
It seems like it’s the only way to keep going sometimes…
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