Autumn begins

 

Hawthorn berries

As October begins, Storm Alex rages and the world seems to be falling in around us, I am trying very hard to remain positive! My usual stance of ‘head-in-the-sand Ostrich style’ works most of the time as I remain fairly oblivious to world news by refusing to watch television news or read a newspaper (although I do subscribe to a weekly news magazine, so am not totally unaware of what’s going on around me or, as the magazine is always a week behind, gone on around me.) I find that it is easier to stay positive if I don’t hear relentless news bulletins of bad news. I was once severely berated for this attitude, by an almost complete stranger, but it works for me and so I shall continue on my way.

Recently, I have been dividing my time between staying at Mum’s in Cheltenham and whistle stop overnight stays in Shepton Mallet and have so far managed to leave my laptop charger in Cheltenham and my phone charger in Somerset when I needed them to be in the other location! Thanks to my very ancient Nokia having been popular for a long time, back in the day, I now have three phone chargers in different locations, thanks to my hoarding landlady, Mary, who has a whole box of old adaptors and chargers that ‘might come in useful one day’!

Sloes as big as damsons!

As I’ve driven backwards and forwards between Somerset and Gloucestershire I have noticed how productive the hedgerows are this year; the sloes are the size of small damsons and so abundant that there shouldn’t be a shortage of sloe gin later on; the hawthorn bushes are covered in a haze of red berries and, here and there, long hip-laden branches of dog rose reach above hedge height to mingle with the old man’s beard that takes over the hedges at this time of year. Sadly, I have also noticed how devastating and obvious ash die back has become on both the Mendips and the Cotswolds, rendering the landscape almost winter-like with dead branches clawing at the skies and many more severely diseased. I hadn’t realised that there were so many ash trees in our landscape – the whole look of the countryside will change, much as it did when our magnificent elm trees died.

Sprays of rose hips

The consultant at Gloucester Royal Hospital told my Mum that she could expect to be in hospital for 4-6 weeks before being able to return home, so I was gearing myself up for frequent drives to Stroud Hospital where she was sent for rehabilitation. Having been held up in long queues at a notorious roundabout, near Cheltenham, that was on the obvious route back from Stroud, I devised several different cross-country routes that took me down some tiny lanes across the Cotswolds, some with grass growing down the middle and very few passing places. To be honest, I love driving down these lanes as you find some wonderful hidden gems of houses (all, sadly, out of my price range) and it all adds to my mental map of the countryside. In one particular lane I came upon a woman out walking her two dogs. There was absolutely no room for me to get past and nowhere in sight for her to get off the road, and so she started to run down the road in front of me! It was a hot day and I was in no particular hurry, so I called out to her to stop running and then I held back to a less intimidating distance until a small wider area allowed me to pass. I then promptly met a white van coming in the other direction and knowing that there were no passing places for ages behind me, I had to wait for him to back up a couple of hundred yards to a driveway, so that we could pass each other.

Having got used to the timing of my journey from Cheltenham to Stroud, I began to think about calling on my childhood friend, Carol, who lives near Stroud and also on an ex-WWOOF host who lives in the beautiful Slad Valley that was on my route to and fro but, before I could contact them to make arrangements, they released Mum from hospital – it had been 3 weeks and 3 days since her accident! Initially, they had intended to send her to a unit attached to a local residential home which acts as a halfway house between hospital and home and helps patients become more able to cope with day-to-day tasks, but there were no rooms available and so they set up a Reablement Team and sent her home. At first, I couldn’t get my head around what the Team did, as they were going to come in 3 times a day but were not carers, as such. What they actually do, is monitor and assess a patient’s ability to function well and safely at home, put in place aids to assist and make suggestions as to how everyday tasks could be tackled in a different way until full mobility is restored. They can be in place for up to six weeks and will gradually reduce the number of visits they make, if they feel the patient is coping well. Mum is so focussed on becoming fully independent again that I’m sure she will succeed.

Alpaca teatime

I have had a couple of long-booked farm sits recently and so my sister and brother-in-law came down from Sheffield in their camper van to look after Mum while I was otherwise occupied, firstly with a one day alpaca-sit at Pensford and secondly, a week-long farm sit at Dundry (from where I am currently writing this blog). The Team wanted the relatives to ‘step back a bit’ so that they could get a better picture of how Mum is really coping, so they took themselves off to a camp site near Tewkesbury overnight, and plan a two-day absence next week, if this goes well. It’s all very well wanting the relatives out of the way a bit but I live the nearest to Mum and I’m two hours away, if she feels she needs help – so this is a really good compromise.

With autumn seeming to have set in with a vengeance in the last few days, I cannot see me getting away in Bunty for quite a while, but she is not totally out of mind. Even though I have no market for my hand-knitted garments at the moment, and no idea when I will have, I have continued to produce items, mainly socks, just to keep myself occupied in the evenings, but I have now decided to knit a series of squares in shades of blue and turquoise to make into a blanket specifically for use as a throw for the rear seat of my van and also a warm, lightweight covering on cooler nights.

I’m sorry that this hasn’t been a more uplifting blog but let me leave you with a photo of one of this year’s alpaca babies at Bell Farm: