Lots of medical juju where required. I had my cataract surgeries eight years ago and love being glasses/contact lens free.

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Beryl, I remember your mother and MIL well, and I am sure you remember my old horror of a MIL. Interestingly her dementia has smoothed her out, and now she is in residential care and all her old home triggers are gone she actually behaves quite well. We had a very difficult few weeks last autumn, in coordination with their medics, ?finding a good place for them both and then actually getting them relocated as she was very hostile to the whole idea. FIL, on the other hand, told me he would rather die right that moment than spend another day alone with her bullying and aggression. Between her poor mobility, constant falls with inability to get up, and significant dementia with total lack of awareness and understanding, she genuinely needed much more care, and more professional care, than a man of 92 in the last stages of heart failure could manage, so I moved in to help him until it was sorted. After the morning I had to do the Heimlich manoeuvre to save him when he choked after she poked him for “nor breathing properly” while chewing a piece of toast, it was not safe to leave them alone at all. My mother having died rather tragically the week before the docs called us and explained the health situation with the in-laws, it was all very difficult - ?but his blissful face his first morning in the home, having had his first uninterrupted night’s sleep in a decade and been able to eat a delicious breakfast at his leisure without her constant heckling and vicious nips and pokes, made it all more than worthwhile. The staff were super and managed to give him space to rest and relax while still letting the two of them spend large amounts of time together every day. Against all expectation she settled very well although she does think she is in a nice Spanish hotel!

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I’m the eldest of five siblings and we are all either in our early sixties or approaching 60 so, like many of our friends, we talk a lot about where we will live and what we will do when we are not constrained by the demands of work or of kids’ education. Of course DH and I relocated to Oxfordshire ten years ago when he went into consultancy rather than full time in a big? company, so we probably won’t move again until we need to either for financial or health reasons. I do miss the sea though, and we do talk of? going back to the coast somewhere, so I love to hear where other people head to and why. We will probably just do out of season seaside holidays – one interesting side-effect of the whole covid thing was that coastal property has become astonishingly expensive, and really we are well placed here ?for family, for Heathrow for DH’s work, and for London for exhibitions and old friends.

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So, if I am keeping track properly, we now have Laura in Massachusetts with a whole new life, Connie settling at last after a? long phase of organising and shifting stuff, Melisande moving to the coast, Peter on the way to somewhere outside Sydney, Mary with a whole new place. And several “new” dogs and grandkids.

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Nilda, I’d love to know if you? have come to think of Brittany as “home”, or whether that is still your little house in the woods? I really enjoy your pictures of Lulu the corgi thanks to the wonders of Facebook. I realise there are probably more of our old group on Facebook than I know about…….

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That’s more than enough from me for now. I’m just finishing a needlepoint stocking for my second great-niece and I realise that since her father has three siblings I may need to needlepoint many more in the interests of fairness (didn’t think that one through, did I?).

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I knitted my way through two 4 ply blankets at the parental bedsides in their last weeks, and I think that may partly be why I have sheered away from knitting for a few months. But I am nearly finished a Lopi sweater which will no doubt come in handy when the power goes out this coming winter. I’ll try to post some pics on Ravelry later!!!

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So nice to hear from old friends….

Jenny

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