A Day in My Life - July

Thanks to Little Jenny Wren for organising this again.

A peaceful start to the day, and our usual morning carer back at work again. Mog woke up just minutes before the carer arrived, so had no time for watching television. This put a less good start on her day, but since it gave me more time in bed, I wasn't too sympathetic with her!

Little Fish slept on. And on. Until I glanced at the clock and realised the school bus was due in ten minutes. There are advantages to the bus being late every single morning - I did in fact just about have time to throw her into some clothes and a hairband or two, insert breakfast into her mouth and water into her tube, clean some crusty bits and plonk her in her wheelchair before it actually beeped its way to the bottom of our road.

Two girls, two bags, one set of swimming things all safely on the bus, I put our recycling bin out came back inside and started to tackle this:and straightening out bits like this:my latest from the "don't ask" shop*. Beautiful, but going to be a pig to iron.

With stunning timing (school holidays beginning next week), our cleaner has resigned. So next step was to turn this sort of thinginto something more closely resembling this:and to turn nice sparkly clean and sudsy water into this:before enjoying a decent cup of coffeewhilst having a meeting with a researcher wanting to know my opinions on posturally supportive wheelchair seating and its impact on daily life. An interesting chat.

Little Fish came home just as we were finishing up, so gave a nice demonstration of how she can move about well in her posturally unsupportive wheelchair, and how postural support would reduce her ability to move about well.

Lunch next. I am confused why Little Fish decided to leave thesebits of crust on the settee, but felt it necessary to raid the bread bin and take only the centre of this sliceThe ways of this child are passing strange.

As I was clearing up, Little Fish decided to decorate my diary for next week.Since she managed to combine this with shredding several receipts, attempting to deface my passport and birth certificate, peeling dust jackets off books and keys off the computer, I decided possibly we ought to go out.

So we went to the post office and posted my grandmother's birthday card.We also stocked up on a few essentials; two for me and two for Little Fish - I hope you can tell the difference!
Time for our next meeting; this one was with our occupational therapist. Little Fish has outgrown her throneand needs something equally supportive to replace it. She also needs something posturally correct to sit in for mealtimes. Posture has been big today. We also looked at Mog's bedand agreed that when she has outgrown it (she's nearly there now), we will need to have something built in to replace it, as it is the only way we will fit an adult sized bed into her bedroom. Does anyone know of a built-in bed maker who can incorporate a height adjustable, profiling mattress?

As our OT left, the post arrived. Still waiting for some parcels (whenever I have something shipped by sea I remember how big this planet is; air travel has shrunk my perception of the world), also waiting for some cheques. Instead I received this:Great. Still, as I picked it up from the hall floor I noticed this hanging from Mog's doorand realised that 12 months ago, Mog was busy being a bridesmaid at her parents' wedding. Happy anniversary J and J! The bouquet is beautiful for what it symbolises, but I think I prefer these oneswhich are sitting on our hall table for day to day prettiness. They definitely smell better, anyway.

Time then to get outside and climb under the swingseat to remove the bindweed from the deckingand then to struggle yet again with our sweet peas.It doesn't matter what I do to them, they will not grow up the wall, the canes, or any other kind of support, preferring to sit around glumly staring at the soil. I have the world's only depressed sweet peas. I wonder if planting St John's Wort around them would cheer them up?

Little Fish helped me to gather the fallen applesand then helped me again by distributing them generously around the kitchen.I'm now wondering what, if anything, to do with them. They are about the size of cherries, and I suspect not terribly edible. We shall see.

A beep beep beep alerted Little Fish to the prospect of interesting traffic coming our way, and she was hugely excited to see the school bus return with Mog on board.
Mog herself was pleased to be home, but less impressed with the news from school that uniform will be compulsory for her from September. She has always had a school uniform, but worn it on average once a term. But for the next ten years she will now spend each and every school day clad in royal blue with a pretty picture over her left breast. She is not going to be excited by this prospect - I wonder if the governors who made this decision have realised how much Mog enjoys showing off her latest outfits? I suspect though that they didn't do it to spite her - we'll just have to hope that shoes are not a part of the uniform, and that she will be satisfied by rotating her way through her fancier pairs instead.

Our third appointment of the day was with our Guiding District Commissioner, who called in to verify documents for my CRB form.

Tea time, wash time, bed time for Little Fish, pyjama time for Mog and then our sitter arrived. Leaving Mog and the sitter watching television, I headed off to Youlbury for an end of term campfire with the Guides.I do like living in the town where I grew up. I moved from being a Guide to being a Young Leader and then to an Assistant Guider, all in the same Company. Mum is the Guide Leader. Tonight, Dad was helping with the Camp Fire, as was the parent of one of the newer Guides. This parent was my own leader when I was a Venture Scout. And in turn, Dad was his Scout leader. Connections.

One very smeechy fire, lots of girls making twisters, one new parent recruited to helping with Brownies. Home to two sleeping girls. One set of pictures uploaded for this post, and I am now going to take some of thismix it with some nice warm water, and attempt to remove the smoke from my skin and hair. I do love that campfire smell, but less so on my sheets and in the morning.

Night, everyone
Tia

*Oxfam, Cancer Research, Helen and Douglas House, could be any of them. If it's going to bother you that a piece of clothing comes second hand then don't ask. Family stuff.