Decorators

Last month was been fraught with the prospect of having builders in my mums property working on kitchen, bathroom and toilet, and dust. Had to deal with the long line of people that needed sorting. I was told by a very helpful young lady in relation to my mother with dementia, that its the ones that shout loudest and longest that are the ones that get heard, and so it does seem that with the social workers dealing with so many cases, that unless your falling apart at the seams you get parked at the side for as long as it takes.

I also had to make use of the respite service for carers and put my mum in a home for the duration of the building work, it was very hard at the beginning and my mum couldn't understand the reasons why. As far as she is concerned the people in these places don't talk and with only 2 staff on duty is was difficult to see how much they could interact with the clients past dinner in the evening and generally people were left to their own devices or to watch tv. I could understand how she felt. It was an eye opener to see the tv programme on BBC (can Gerry Robinson fix dementia care homes). But it proved to be a great help in the midst of the situation, she got on well with the staff as she is generally very sociable and lively.

The decorating is now complete, and as usual there is always areas that could be improved, places that need touching up, holes that need to be filled where they had their 'little accidents', and there was some damage done to walls, but hay, the mist of dust is clearing and now I have to arm myself for the next round.

In all that has gone on I have tried to maintain a level of creativity, which is the one thing, alongside my faith that keeps me going, working on different creative projects reminds me that in the midst of a situation there can always be a place for you to go and immerse yourself in colour, texture and over the next few weeks I will be featuring some of the work that has come out of those times also been working on some journals and sketch books, will let you have a look over the next few weeks..