Spanish Christmas tree

 This is a photo of our tree in Spain which I left behind including all the decorations. Wish now I had brought the decorations home. They were built up over many years and they will be hard to replace but it might be fun buying them. I remember I bought a lot of them in the January sales so I suppose it was a bit of a hodgepodge but it always looked good. This year I am sticking to red and gold but thinking next year to go for blue and silver. The main thing is I have the tree so I can go for whatever I fancy. Ken loves the tree and where I was thinking Christmas Day would be just another day maybe I can make it a bit special. In Spain there were parties on the run up and on the day we had people to dinner. Now with Ken’s health problems it will be just us but hopefully I can still make a effort.

Stage two

 So far I have added some red baubles but have some gold ones coming but not until next week so it will be slow progress. Wish now I had brought my decorations back from Spain each year the tree there was overloaded.

Christmas Tree

 Andy, Ken’s friend and our gardener took me to our local garden center to buy a Christmas tree so I bought this prelit tree. Andy erected it. I think it has all sorts of sequences to the lights but haven’t tried them yet.. I also bought some baubles which I will hang but will take time doing it. I am not sure I have it at the best angle for each layer and think the manufacturer could put slots so it could be shown to its best advantage, anyway so far this is the best I have come up with. 

I don’t feel a bit like Christmas but think I should make an effort for Ken. Last year we didn’t do anything, our first year for years that we weren’t in Spain where we always had a tree and friends to Christmas dinner.  This year I am making an effort I am not sure we will ever be able to create the excitement of Christmas past but at least we are making the effort. Ken loves the tree, he is in a lot of pain so has gone up to bed so I will start to decorate it so when he comes down tomorrow he will see it. I have ordered more baubles but they will take some time to come so it will be slow progress. I haven’t yet found something for top, in Spain we had a star. I am looking on line, when I was a child it was always a fairy doll but don’t want that, maybe an angel or another star.

Phone call

Sky in her favorite spot, she seems to be coping well after the loss of Shula for which I am grateful, I am not so sure about Ken or myself. 

Since Ken’s diagnoses of likely Parkinson’s disease and although the neurologist consultant wrote to the doctors surgery regarding the monitoring of  the prescribed medication we heard nothing. I did after a few weeks ring the surgery and a locum rang me back only to tell me it was nothing to do with them and I should get back to the neurologist which I had consulted privately. I referred him to the letter which was sent to the surgery of which I had a copy but he suggested I ring the number on the letter despite the fact that I explained that was just for his secretary who had no contact except to make appointments and bill for his services he was not interested. Since then Ken has had a couple of falls which I have managed except the last one where he fell in the bedroom and couldn’t get up. I covered him up and we waited a couple of  hours hoping he would regain enough strength to get on the bed but that didn’t happen and he started to ramble so I rang for an ambulance which of course didn’t come. They did ring back to see if he was conscious  but didn’t seem concerned that he was rambling. I was a bit annoyed at this point and asked why someone in the street managed to have an ambulance at least four times a week for well over an hour when it was just because she was old, lonely and depressed but we had waited hours. Finally between us Ken managed to crawl into bed and I stood the ambulance down. Much to my surprise an NHS  team arrived, they did check Ken and said they would refer the matter to our doctors surgery, re the medication review also if there was help available if he fell for which I was quite prepared to pay.  

Long and short of it I had a call this morning from the doctors surgery and we went through the whole sorry saga and we have agreed on a slow increase of Ken’s medication which I will need to monitor for side effects but know I can ring for advice. The problem of help if he falls and I can’t manage they are looking into, as am I. The phone call has helped no end knowing that I may get some help and we are not totally alone coping with it.

  

Sleepy head

 My little dog is almost totally deaf as she doesn’t even hear the doorbell these days.

We had a late night delivery from Tesco’s which she totally slept through.  I use to hate the barking when the delivery van arrived and even before they walked up the drive  I was alerted. and had to tell them NO which they both observed. Never needed to turn on my burglar alarm system which was most annoying if you forgot and walked downstairs before turning it off but now it is necessarily because we have lost our best protection our dogs who barked. 

Every day I am reminded of how much I miss Shula, breakfast she would stand wagging her tail wherever you were (still in bed). Evening meal the same, she had an inbuilt clock. Little dog Sky never seemed bothered and the first week after we lost Shula we had a problem getting to her to eat but now she has her own system, she whines and if you ignore her it becomes vocal. Before we had Sky Shula never barked but she learnt from Sky and she had a large bark, we were lucky that we just had just had to say no to silent them. Now the little dog has come into her own, when she wants to go out she whines when before Shula would just stand before you you wagging her tail sometimes not even follow the little dog out, now the little dog seems to have a voice of her own.

Life after Shula

 What do you do when you can’t sleep and your mind runs riot. I have tried watching television but can’t consecrate. Reading which once helped isn’t now. I remember at such times brushing Shula and silly dog loved it. I have tried with Sky but she really doesn’t want it. I am back to flicking through the TV or can write on here

I don’t think I have the energy to create a new blog so this is Life After Shula which is not easy because for the last fourteen years she was my consent companion. She was the reason why we have Sky, my reason to go out walking and everything good in my life. 

I remember the first day when we brought her home she had weed herself and puked up in the car, she just lay on the terrace and I just sat and watched her for about four hours while she slept. When she woke she crept about and encountered Pippa one of our cats and started to bark, I told her no and she retreated to her basket. We were ever vigilant watching when she needed to wee we took her outside and when she went we praised her so ended up being able to tell her when and where to go. She was the most loving dog ever, so miss her.

Look at me

 Sky checking to see if we are watching her after having a bark though the window.