Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

With my Mum being over 83 now she’s acquired a social worker as I guess do a lot of older people these days.

In some ways that’s handy as it’s given us access to a day care centre which lets her get out to socialise with people around her own age. That’s a good thing as what happened over the previous decades was that with Dad going out the majority of the friends that “they” acquired over that time were actually his friends which accentuated the problem of the increasing age of the friends even more.

However, where it’s not so nice is the sheer level of what seems like interference in the life of the family that having a social worker entails. Hardly a week goes by when Elizabeth isn’t calling in for something or other or rather tries to call in as we’re out quite a lot. That being out doesn’t go down too well as there seems to be the assumption that you’ll be there when the social worker calls, regardless of when they call.

The level of interference seems sure to go up a notch thanks to them pushing for Mum to be declared mentally incompetent. Now, I’ll grant that Mum’s mind isn’t what it was ten years back and indeed she moves around a lot more slowly too but, frankly, I think that having her declared mentally incompetent by a court is totally over the top. What it actually means is that Social Services get to review all of her finances and spending which seems to me to be incredibly interfering. Moreover, I’m supposed to keep her in the house or go everywhere with her. Thus, her regular walks to the shops would have to stop “in case she gets lost”. OK, I imagine the day will come when she will get lost on her way to or from the shops but that day isn’t here yet and putting her under what’s effectively house arrest seems far from reasonable.

Overall, I’d say that they’re not such a good thing at all. So far the only point in their favour is that they’ve organised getting her into a day centre but we’d have managed that independently if need be and any plus points are far outweighed by the interference.

One thing that many country park type places seem to have in common is that they work to what seems to be quite a tight timetable.

Thus you’ll find on a sunny day if you’ve not found a parking space by 1pm or so then you can pretty much forget it until after 3pm when it quite suddenly becomes very easy to find a space. The reason is, of course, largely down to the lunchtime BBQ that’s very common in the summer and, by and large, it doesn’t matter a whole lot which day of the week it is although, on the whole, it’s a more mummy crowd during the week and a more equal mix at the weekend.

But what’s confusing is that it seems to happen in all the parks, or at least all those that we go to. We went to the relatively new for us Peaklands Park on Sunday and found the same thing. Arriving around 1pm the car park was relatively empty but seeing as it was nice we thought we’d nip out around 2pm to pick up a heap of BBQ stuff, finding the car park completely full and cars parked right out to the main road. Coming back little more than 40 minutes later there were quite a lot of spaces. When we’d to nip back out to the car a little after 3pm there were loads of spaces and by 5pm it was almost empty.

It wasn’t even that the park activities had closed down at 3pm as it’s basically a country park so the only activity is the delightful (and, for a change, good value) little train which goes on to just after 5pm.

Still, if you’d like a park relatively free of people, 3pm or later seems the time to go.

Disappointingly we’ve been the only parents who’ve been there during the football coaching sessions this week but we’ve been well rewarded with a week long series of excellent football skills by everyone from the 6 year olds through to the 10 year olds taking part.

Our little guy has really taken to the game and managed to clock up 6 goals in one of the matches and he’s been picking up various prizes during the week with at least three trophies to be picked up this afternoon including both individual and team wins. Unfortunately, his big brother doesn’t seem to have accumulated quite so many so there’s a bit of disappointment in store when they start comparing trophy counts. We’re not sure how many are coming their way as there were just an amazing number of opportunities to pick things up during the course of the week and there’s a final tournament this morning before the prize giving in the afternoon.

The weather has been almost perfect for the week so far with just the right mix of cloud and sun so that nobody collapsed with heatstroke nor were we freezing. Supposedly it’s going to be pouring today so they’re relocating to the gym.

That’s one of the questions that you get asked in the abbreviated test for dementia that doctors sometimes use.

I’m sure that it sounded like a sensible question when the test was first devised but it was devised by people who work “normal” Monday to Friday jobs which, of course, is something entirely different to the kind of activity pattern experienced by the, usually, retired people it’s intended to assess. When you’re retired, by and large, every day is very much like Saturday is to the rest of us with the sole exception of Sunday for church goers.

Another is “who is the Prime Minister” which also isn’t quite such an obvious question in these days when there’s a whole plethora of prime ministers in the UK. And, of course, we’ve just got a new couple at the helm. Thus, not such a valid question after all.

What about asking what year it is? That makes a lot of sense when you’re working but realistically isn’t something that matters a whole lot when you’re retired and don’t work to a calendar.

Which just goes to show how difficult it can be to devise even an apparently simple test.

As the school year ends, there are an increasing number of events that I’ve ended up taking part in which makes me look towards this time next year with some trepidation as we’ll have added another school into the mix by then.

Over the past week or so there’s been the trip to the new school with the class, then the evening session at the school that was mainly for the parents. The daytime trip ended up giving James something of a headache which kept him at home a couple of days thus eating up a little more of the week. Tuesday was the usual blur of activity. Then I was off to Streamvale Farm with John. That’s a place that we’ve been meaning to take the kids to for ages but, frankly, I’m glad that we didn’t waste the money on it as it’s very, very poor value and dangerous to boot, of which more anon. Finally, Friday saw the final trip to the physiotherapist for Mum through to the school BBQ.

Saturday isn’t much better, as usual, as we’ve Kumon in the morning followed by the football coaching in the afternoon with just an hour between them both. Having said that, it does seem more relaxed in that we go to the places and wait for the kids rather than doing the home and back trip each time as we always end up doing during the week.