While I am working up the effort to post...

[bluefirebird]

I'd like to say a thankyou to all my friends on here and on twitter (I'm struggling to keep up over there!) this year.

Thankyou for all your comments and support - my life is progressing in fits and starts at the moment and there are comments that I wanted to reply to and haven't worked up the effort to (I might, yet, you never know).

It has been a pleasure and an insight to know you all online - reading of other people's lives helps put my own into perspective better than much of the shallow contact I have with many of my RL friends.

Meeting Amy and Hanne (and Bunny) was a highlight of the year, I'm sorry it was only a flying visit.

May 2012 bring you all health and happiness and fulfilment of dreams.

.

Comments

[bluefirebird.livejournal.com]

Thankyou.
But it's kind of difficult to imagine anything good/nice round the corner at the moment.

[ferneberga.livejournal.com]

I can understand that. I believe it's common for people who've lost a loved one to feel like that.
You just take one day at a time, and if you can somehow manage to escape the parents and aunt for a week somewhere (anywhere), I'm sure it will do you the world of good.

[bluefirebird.livejournal.com]

It's not just having lost Pete, but I can't see things improving with my Dad - in fact the NHS has just made him many times worse this year (he wasn't incontinent before all the hospital stays, for starters). Mum needs to put him in proper care really, but she doesn't want him to go, and she's terrified of all the horror stories she seen and read in the media - not to mention the fact that the NHS hasn't been much better than that.
They'll have been married 59 years next month.

I am happy escaping to the sanctuary of my flat - with Tills - and don't have any desire to go anywhere else or leave her (I think she's got Dementia too, to be honest!) It's all the other stuff that I need to do that's a chore. Even my friends wanting me to "get out" is too much effort (although they have agreed to leave me be on New Year's Eve) - and I really need to get over to Pete's place and claim my stuff, what of his I want to keep and anything else before it all gets tidied into a skip. Trouble is, it's not my house to come and go as I please anymore...

[ferneberga.livejournal.com]

Sadly I'm not surprised at NHS' cockup with your Dad. My Dad fortunately is autonomous, mentally healthy but has his physical ailments, which are generally being made worse by the lack of interest shown by NHS even in terms of relief. The standard answer from the majority of the docs, is "what do you expect at your age?" to which Dad replies, "pain relief".
Are there no daycare centres for your Dad? The Basque health service for example has daycare centres for people like your Dad, which whilst not the best thing, it would give your mum some relief, and probably not worry her so much given the horror stories in the press.
Mine had been married 56 years before Mum passed away, which puts them in age group of the very elderly.
I think it's important to get out at least a couple of times a month even though you don't feel like it. Many people don't like New Year's Eve including yours truly. I've always found it depressing even before Mum passed away.
Do make sure to get your personal belongings from Pete's place mementoes of him asap, because the family will probably be wanting to clear the place out after the festivities.

Hugs