sunday 1 – will self’s back on the radio, here the website summary:
The Past
A Point of View
Will Self argues that the past is not “a foreign country”. He says we often have delusions about the past because of our “failure to grasp how our present shapes our hindsight”.
monday 2 – learnt how to swim breaststroke in the modern style at training via karl-heniz
charly wegelius – Domestique: The Real-life Ups and Downs of a Tour Pro
tuesday 3 – on-site at LHM webex with developers
wednesday 4 – celebrate the big day
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/04/britain-wildlife-cuts-brexit
interesting comment from Briar:
“We live in a “centrist”, quisling culture that encourages our demons, not our angels.”
eve has a few friends who come back after their foray into west park, they sit outside on the balcony and get reprimanded by mrs kolb for talking too loud
friday 6 – as irony would have it today was the big cabinet away day / pow-wow to bash out a brexit strategy at chequers from 10am to 10pm
had downloaded will self’s point of view on “the past” this morning and listened to it – it was broadcast on sunday 1st july, a bitter irony to what was about to happen this day, since what he referenced became a key to my understanding, together with the L P Hartley novel from which he takes the quote and from the joan baez song “The Things That We Are Made Of”
I’d been toying these last few days that i should call mum .. alas, things were taken out of my hands:
got a call at 13:35 our time from Lee at summerfield to say that mum had passed away
I recall that there was a comment that although there was no DNAR notice, they hadn’t carried it out because it’s undignified and they didn’t think it would bring anything – maybe they were asking for confirmation of whether to carry out – if so, this was not certainly not clear and I wasn’t aware that this was being sought – albeit I may have given some tacit agreeing tones
she explained the sequence of events:
11:15 uk time – carer went up to change her pads, move her, give her a drink, was happy and joking
12:10 uk time – carer went up to bring dinner and found she had passed away
Bella and Amy were the 2 carers involved
during the last couple of days, mum had been up and about in the sun, laughing and joking
went upstairs to tell katie and eve, couple of hours later letting sabs know
margaret’s family visit when jamie gets home from work, she’d last visited a couple of weeks ago
spoke with summerfield again as jamie was there, the paramedic had confirmed/pronounced the death
had been investigating undertakers on the web, both ones suggested by summerfield and called howcrofts to get a run down of prices
police staying there until her body can be picked up and taken to a funeral director – maybe then needs to go to airedale mortuary for a post mortem, if the Dr decides, we will have no choice
The Dr will eventually produce a death certificate, someone will need to sign this at the registrar in keighley, vicki at howcroft’s can take margaret over
went to band practice and it was nice to take my mind off things, sat watching the brazil v belgium game with graham and we caught the last half an hour
saturday 7 – not able to sleep and up at about 4am to read the news after the cabinet meeting yesterday, all a waste of time of course
still upset, maybe more so today than yesterday, regrets about not calling her this last week, i had some inkling to do that, could have told her about sabs’ A level results, eve’s concert and katie’s visit, still it is as it is now ..
had a nice long chat with sabs as she was having breakfast, then later we had lunch together
watch first half of the england v sweden game and then we go to eve’s summer concert by frau jonas
sunday 8 – got up again quite early and bit hungover, but managed to get motivated for a short run and then to pick up the croissants
reading some more news:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/07/soft-brexit-nobodys-interests-britain-cant-leave-eu
went to church and light a candle, mention to joseph and we sit in church for a while after the service, was comforting – had taken the sunday school class into the park round the corner to play
still upset, maybe more so today than yesterday, christine mentioned the grief will last
we cleared the balcony of plants temporarily into the garden, so that the repair work could be done, which had started last week
monday 9 – slept a bit better having been terribly tired these last couple of days, got up at 7.15 so an hour later than normal, eve was studying her maths and chemistry, katie preparing to go to the uk
best fonts:
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/gallery/2013/sep/14/the-10-best-fonts
thought for the day covers the work of the US organisation in turning round the lives of children in care:
https://www.firststar.org/
catherine booth from the coroner’s office in bradford called, the local GP, who I later found out was Dr Walker has issued a death certificate and put it down as Dementia, so there would, unless we could strongly convince otherwise, no need for a post-mortem
interestingly this has been issued without seeing her afaik
she said in a lot of cases where the pathologist carries out a post-mortem it was usually just slowly worsening heart disease where the heart’s blood supply is constantly getting reduced on old age, ischemic heart disease (which is likely made worse by bed rest); rather than a big heart-attack, imagine that is also what is easier for relative’s to accept so likely some PR at work
katie’s theories over the couple of days were this ie. heart failure or a stroke or pneumonia, since she had been in bed so long – she calls the latter as the “old man’s friend” as it takes them away quite painlessly, so it’s known in the “trade”, mind you she also says morphine is another way of moving death along as it depresses breathing
called john to let him know time and date of funeral
tuesday 10 – called jonathan in the evening to get his input on the funeral arrangements
for my thoughts this week, I’m preoccupied with the joan baez song:
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/joanbaez/thethingsthatwearemadeof.html
had to get the announcement done for the paper today
wednesday 11 – waking up early and working on the eulogy as well as feeding lizzie
walking home from guitar and mentioned about mum to monica, she made a good comment that although it’s not totally unexpected, “sie ist trotzdem die Mama”
got me thinking about how we used to call her “mammy” when we were little, perhaps dad had played us too many al jolson records
watching football and eve has lissy staying over to watch it too
bit disappointing, seemed as they went into the lead, they rested on their laurels
thursday 12 – getting through things better, but just entering date on calendar for her and dad’s death, very emotional
the death notice goes in the paper:
http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/announcements/deaths/deaths/16348983.Joyce_Gill/
friday 13 – future lounge day!
was a very enjoyable day, even better and less stress than last time, hope my comments were useful, added an update since there were a few good questions – lissy asked many questions and couple of the lads tony and raffaele, plus another couple were really engaged and the practical was fun to do and do the same/develop next year
was quite ok sitting on stage for the final discussion round, made me laugh seeing the back row middle right consisting of lissie, helena, sonja, eve and finja
got back for lunch and got to working on catching up with jobs
then browsing some of the brexit news and comments:
BCMakoto replying to rezevici says:
The idea that something is ever “done” in terms of politics, democracy, law or other related fields is preposterous. Worst case scenario, it is downright dangerous. Imagine for a second that a political decision, no matter the difference between what was promised and/or attempted and the final result, was suddenly set in stone. No backsies! An approach like this opens the door to legal and unadulterated lying to voters.
Every reasonable person must be allowed (and should strive to) change his mind openly when being presented with new, tangible information.
There’s an old German proverb:
“Konsequenz bedeutet, dass man auch Holzwege zuende geht!”
Roughly translated, the concept means that you’re only ever acting consequential and meaningful if you see things through to the end. Even if you know that, for one reason or another, it’s a mistake.
(I haven’t heard this proverb and in any case wouldn’t have understood, so an interesting sentence).
That’s not reasonable. It’s stupidity.
..
and here a better discussion:
https://www.spiesser.de/meinung/konsequenz-heisst-auch-einen-holzweg-zu-ende-zu-gehen?page=1
particularly the entry:
“Einen falschen weg weiterzugehen ist unsinnig und Schwachsinn.
Es nützt einem nichts und man hat am Ende nichts dabei gewonnen.
Wenn man was falsch macht und dann wie gesagt auf dem Holzweg ist, sollte man seinen Fehler beheben.
Denn wer einen Fehler macht und ihn nicht behebt, begeht einen zweiten!”
saturday 14 – pottering about downstairs trying to get some thoughts together for the eulogy for mum
sunday 15 – spent the day working on the eulogy and the order of service
monday 16 – went for run 5.30am then to printers to get service sheets done, 55€ for 70 A4 sheets on 120g paper, which seemed a good price:
https://abc-kopierzentrale.de
called bradford services who’d been trying to get hold of me
the person mentioned about the yorkshire ambulance service and their concern that they felt that since there was no DNR was in place, medical help wasn’t called for as early as it should have been
home called Dr Cuthbert at 12:30 and Dr Cuthbert advised to call for an ambulance
home called me at 12:35 for 6 minutes
the ambulance service didn’t feel the home called for medical assistance as early as they should have done
ambulance staff felt that because there was no DNAR in place, they should not have delayed an hour/hour and half as long as they did:
13:19 home made contact with emergency services,
13:35 arrived on scene
ie. after they had called me.
The matter of course, was referred to the coroner, who asked the GP who was happy with cause of death (dementia) and coroner agreed to that assessment.
the lady mentions that regrets can only be for those things within your control – still there i have a regret i hadn’t asked earlier, if resuscitation had been tried, if ambulance had been called etc
having said all that my #1 concern was that she stayed in bed so long and had extended periods of bed rest
wednesday 18 – set off on early lufthansa flight to manchester, takes an age to get sorted with the hire car and arrive about 1:30pm in clitheroe to drop a few things off and prepare for onward journey
had stopped in a layby to take a call from dawn at bradford mdc who’d updated me with a few more details, said she was happy with the answers which summerfield gave
drive over to skipton, meeting margaret at #57 then both going down to howcrofts, vicki leads us through to see the body and after an emotional few minutes we go up town to have a tea at rackham’s cafe, bumping into sheila, her daughter and grandson on the way out
we meet up with roger at 4pm and go through a few things relevant to the service
thursday 19 – after a few jobs and breakfast at swales with sabs, we both drive over to skipton via the broughton churchyard where we inspect the grave preparations for the next day
we drive over the tops to auntie jeans, up over carleton moor, a wonderful run for the bike
the 2 of us meet up at summerfields with john, jamie and margaret who are already there and have cleared out mum’s stuff, sabs, john and i wait around a while, whilst i write a thank you card
again it’s another emotional pull as i sit in first the quiet far room with the chess set and then smaller dining room where mum and i spent so much time when i was over at meal times, where we’d linger to have a chat, also where we’d had that big family game of i-spy with mum getting some of the answers ahead of everyone else!
we drive back to skipton, then onto clitheroe where we have something to eat and spend time until it’s time to drive over to preston to pickup katie
friday 20 – waking up i so wished i didn’t have to go through with this day, we get up early to send an email so that eve can take the day off
have some breakfast then drive over to skipton, stopping to get some cash for the wake and calling in on gillian down the street at #35
john and i meet roger at trinity for 10am to go through things at the lectern, john practices his reading first, then me, john mentions he wants to add a memory and he’s asked to write it out for later
I drive back over to Clitheroe, get changed and pick up Sabs and Katie and we re-assemble in the church talking with Jim who is doing the sound and with Susan who is doing the hymns, whom I knew from my schooldays at Brougham Street, she was a keen recorder player, think her maiden name is Curtis.
we went into the Chapel at Howcrofts and took a last look at Mum’s body, touching her a little, her feet, hand and head.
The funeral itself was actually ok and I tried to switch my emotions off and just concentrate on what was to be done, helping to manouevre the coffin into the chapel on its bier (trolley) with the rest of the family, john and margaret at the front, myself and james my brother-in-law in the middle, katie and sabs at the back.
In typical fashion at our funerals, katie and i got split up – katie and sabs went to the right hand side, joshua my nephew, john and i sat on the left hand side.
It was a lovely service, about 60, maybe more, joyous singing at a decent tempo and the lord’s prayer was well-spoken – it reminded of a traditional full methodist chapel service and Mum would have been pleased. We had a lot from the family, many from street. John’s reading went well, and for the reflections/eulogy each said something around what i had prepared – John contributing a lovely story of how we went to a flower festival at the trinity parish church (top of the high street) only a couple of years ago near her birthday which she so enjoyed, then we went to the castle pub for a meal together. It was another reminder of the happy times we’d had together. I built Margaret’s comments into the end of the speech I gave, went ok.
After the service, I helped move the coffin out and I thought we’d all agreed to this, but in the end it was mainly James, myself and the undertakers; it worked quite well with the music going out.
Then we drove to broughton church for the burial/committal and again i ended up getting the bottom of the coffin on the church side and lowered it in when it was time, the minister waiting until the coffin was in place before saying the committal liturgy, as he preferred it this way he’d said.
We each threw flowers onto the coffin and then went back to the funeral tea/wake, which was well-attended, perhaps 50.
funeral tea was at
https://www.oddfellows.co.uk/
various recollections at the funeral tea:
andrew saying that regrets are a waste of time and energy
sheila saying that they’d each referred to one another as “Our”, as in “Our Joyce” or in Mum’s case “Our Sylvia”, plus confirming that Mum had looked after them when Sylvia had to go into hospital
barbara saying that she’d always referred to Mum as “Auntie Joyce” until Mum had corrected her every time she’d mentioned it, I can just imagine Mum’s careful correction
sat with Peter Self a while and next to him Alan Hickman with his wife and we had a chat about their time around Germany, eg. Hamburg
we left oddfellows after i’d said my thanks to the wonderful helpers and we went down to see pete and rosalind for a drink at herriots, where i was rapidly falling asleep and so pete sent me on at about 9pm to get a beer in clitheroe!
drove back ok and we sat around chatting, but too tired to go out, so just had a beet at home and went to bed reasonably early
saturday 21 – we wake up early and have a long chat which brings out lots of strong emotions from yesterday
walking around like a ghost today, we go to swales for breakfast
katie mentions we need to live our lives to the full, and (as if we are living) for them, thinking about mum and dad
it was all I could do to just walk around Clitheroe, go for something to eat at Swales the cafe with Sabs and Katie, then wander round the shops.
Then we drive over to Skipton and went out for a meal together with Margaret’s family and John, we were 8 round a table and just re-configuring ourselves to the new situation without Mum.
sunday 22 – over breakfast I explain and then Katie further explains and we correct something which Sab’s was asking about marriages – the difference between consecrated and consumated – quite a difference
drive to preston with katie and sabs to catch their trains to the airport and london euston respectively
come back and pack car for the trip over to skipton and making the 10:45am service down at trinity, where I’m asked to take the first reading from jeremiah chapter 23, verses 2 – 6.
go up to margaret’s after coffee at the chapel, talking with jim and eileen a bit, also andrea and partner, also the grandparents with their 2 granddaughters from leipzig
try to go further with the pc from pete, but it’s no good without the password even to repair it or re-install it, since the product code is not valid
have a baked spud which margaret makes for lunch then john, josh and i set off for grassington to see auntie elizabeth and drop off the elephant teapot which i have from dad and which she wanted to have
she mentioned how she thought the funeral service went well and for her, it was a highlight that the salvation army were there, alan and mari, who’d visited mum of course, also that kathleen had met up with someone who knew mum when she was much younger, and am wondering if this is either betty myers or the mother of the rennisons, whom we’d bumped into in b&m a few years ago
after a tea and cakes/biscuits, we 4 have a nice walk along the river to a place where a few others are gathered around the water, bathing, we sit on the rocks
set off down to skipton and get called by martin, we’re supposed to be meeting at 5:45pm at the royal shepherd for the pub quiz evening – was quite good with spon and judith, also sean along and a chip butty supper, manage 4 pints then john and i go to bizzie lizzy’s to share a fish in teacakes
martin had sent a text earlier which I couldn’t get on my non-smart phone, to say: “Hi Phil, hope your ok mate. Everything seemed to go smoothly on Friday (under the circumstances). Ian has booked us on for tonight . See you there about 5.45pm 👍”
come back to the woolly sheep where we are staying and go to bed for about 11pm
monday 23 – have breakfast at the woolly sheep with john, then round to margaret’s to get her
all go in the car to walker foster to pick up the will from bridget, there are no surprises and she walks us through it with a colleague laura, then josh joins us having been caught peering in from outside
we go to natwest bank and later sort out a few things there with jane
have late lunch at morisons, picking up tea and filling up the car
get started on some of the form filling
go back to get certified copy of will, having visited yorkshire building society to sort a few queries
write a couple of thank you notes
drop margaret off at skipton general hospital or what used to be called winsfield
take jamie’s wallet to the cavendish in keighley as he’d forgotten it
post a few letters in clitheroe, then pack and go to bed for 9.30pm
tuesday 24 – wake at 3.50am and get off within an hour to drive to airport via junction 26 for petrol top-up and then onto airport, which was tough to get through and make it for the 7.15am flight
notice this new organisation for 24h care at home:
https://curasenio.de/
references this brass tacks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1uJaJddzP4
working with katie and howcrofts to get the thank you notice in the craven herald this week
just going through the times from today and the obituary of Don McCarthy, founder of a footwear empire who later became chairman of house of fraser:
“what landlords have not realised is that in every single city, a shopping centre called the internet has opened” in 2009
“after the hammer, hindsight is the best tool in the world”
in helping executives dealing with things that were worrying them, he would listen and then say:
“on this one, forget it. You will be fine, so don’t meet a worry halfway.” If later, it had become an issue he would go “Time to meet that worry the full way.”
he started at 14 in the stockroom of stead&simpson and by 17 he was running the store, admitting to many successes as “more luck than judgement”.
thursday 26 – the acknowledgement appears:
http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/announcements/other/acknowledgements/16378497.JOYCE_GILL/
saturday 28 – think i am coming to the view that i can look at pictures in joy of mum, it has been a struggle these last few days, seeing them as a dead person, but actually they live on if i can honour her and dad’s memory
sunday 29 – band playing
monday 30 – went to the office, last day for Reinhold, went for lunch
tuesday 31 – watch the film “The Mercy” with Colin Firth in it about the sailor Don Crowhurst:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst
Had later called the care home and asked lee more about mum’s death, she said:
they’d only had 5 sudden deaths like mum’s in the last 33 years and in a home with 32 residents, perhaps this is <5%, unusual.
Got through this horrible month looking back in retrospect, with support from many.
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