Thursday 26 June 2014

It's Prom Night

Thank you for all your caring comments yesterday, it's very comforting to know that people care.
Today I went to clean at my Mums whilst they are away.
Eden has been staying there and although she had hoovered through and washed the floors my eager eyes spotted a few things that hadn't been moved so the hoover had to come out again. She did try though, bless her!
Went to N's to do my hour, she's had her hair cut and styled and I've got a couple of new tops for her, she did pay me to before anyone thinks I've gone completely mad!
She looks a million dollars and is so much happier.
I came home and had a shower and blow dried my hair and changed into something other than "cleaning clothes" so that I could use the bathroom before Eden and friends took it over.
We picked up three friends and then went to another house where another eleven teenagers were waiting for us. The mum at that house had put on a little soirée, so I drank champagne and ate some nibbles, Malc was on orange juice as he was driving. It was lovely chatting to the other parents and taking some pictures.
We left and took them to the prom, they all looked smashing, the girls in their gorgeous dresses and the lads in their suits.
We had to pick up Mums dogs on the way home to take to our house as Eden isn't there tonight but is going to an after party and won't be seen until tomorrow dinnertime.
Although I'm slightly concerned I'm going to get a call from A &E saying she has a broken ankle from tripping over in her four inch heels!!
It's been another busy but lovely day, I count my lucky stars that I have five beautiful, healthy children, a supportive husband, loving parents and great friends.
Onto the pics,
Eden,
A close up,


Eden and Gazza, ( she has a beautiful name but I can't spell it! It's pronounced Shan-gar-vie. We just call her Gazza!


Eden and a couple of friend decorated up the bus with butterfly lights and covers. This afternoon we put a white rose on every seat


Eden, Gazza and Jess


Eden, Jess, Gazza and Catherine, drinking champagne


Most of the group, aren't they a good looking lot?



Wednesday 25 June 2014

Today's drama!

Went over to N's at 10 am and managed to completely clean her washing machine. I am doing her washing at mine at the moment but I hope to give her machine a run through tomorrow and check it isn't leaking or anything with a view to using hers in the near future.
Got home and put a slow cooker on for tea, sweet and sour chicken, yum, yum.
About 12-30 a man knocked on my door, he'd been sent over by N as he was there to clean her loo!
Now yesterday the social worker rang me and told me it would be cleaned on Friday at 12 ish so I was not a happy bunny as I was just about to go shopping.
I rang the lady in question and left her a scathing message saying somebody somewhere had got the time wrong and that I do actually have a life!
The toilet was sorted anyway, it is now sparkling and I will be able to maintain it.
I haven't rang the social worker back to say it's all been done and OK, she can jolly well ring me!
Malc went shopping with a couple of the boys whilst I was there.
Eden then came home with a couple of friends to wash and hoover out the bus. They've put lots of blankets over the seats and strung up butterfly fairy lights inside. I personally think they're a bit of a waste of time as the prom starts at 7pm and it will still be light, they are going to an after party a couple of roads away so we won't be picking them up.
We had tea and I went over to N's for 7pm as the carer would be arriving. We had a phone call at about 7-10pm to say she was running late which is a first. They usually don't let you know and you're sat there waiting!
By 8-45 pm we were getting a bit annoyed so I rang them back only to be told that the carer was caught up with a lady who was waiting for a paramedic so we decided to cancel her for tonight. Goodness knows what time she would have turned up.
The time spent there was put to good use though as we had a lovely chat and I've completely cleaned the kitchen windowsill and got down the net to wash and hopefully hang back up tomorrow.
I'm now off to my bed shattered after another busy day.
On a lighter note one of my friends has asked if the boys would like to earn some money on Sunday by going to her stables and picking up the horse poo!!
We do like to be different in this house!!


Tuesday 24 June 2014

What a world we live in !

I don't even know how to start this post.
Firstly many thanks to the people who asked where I was in my comments, it's lovely to know I've been missed.
I had sort if given up blogging, my time has been taken up with so many other things.
I clean for my Mum, another lady disabled by polio and I now have another client who lives across the road from me, this lady has taken over my life a bit.
I will call her N for neighbour and NS would be her son as in neighbours son. He has learning difficulties.
I know them slightly as in to say Hello to, I haven't seen them for ages but five weeks ago I saw an ambulance outside their house and the son getting into the back of it looking absolutely dreadful, he looked really grey and that was from my lounge window. The neighbour next to them gets them fish and chips every Saturday and pops in to see them from time to time, I will call the lady V.
I went over to her to find out what was wrong knowing that N had diabetes and cataracts and that NS was her carer.
NS was extremely ill and his kidneys were failing, he is now on dialysis, feeling much better but still in hospital.
V told me that their house was in quite a bad state and they really needed a cleaner. I said I would do it and although V said it was really bad nothing prepared me for what I saw when I walked in the door.
It was like something you see off the TV about houses of horror and hoarders. I honestly didn't know where to start.
I did about a months worth of washing up which included plates covered in mould.
Malc, the four boys and I blitzed NS's bedroom, it took us all 2 1/2 hours to get it done. His sheets were covered in not even mould, it was like green mushrooms, we just threw the sheets off both the beds in the bin.
I wasn't sleeping at night knowing how this lady was living. V rung social services but when they rang N she said she didn't need them.
So we had to persuade her to ring them again and say she had changed her mind.
V has been feeding her breakfast, dinner and tea for the last five weeks.
When I first went round her clothes were filthy and she had no clean ones to wear. I had to throw a load out as they wouldn't clean in the washing machine.
I have nearly finished the kitchen, the amount of out of date food I've had to throw out, the state of the fridge I couldn't believe.
Social services have got an industrial cleaner coming in on Friday to clean the toilet as they told me not to touch it on environmental grounds.
N now has a carer coming in morning and night which has caused its own problems as one of them told her she was taking her tablet wrongly and she's taken 42 too many tablets in four days, rang the doctor saying her meds would be locked away and only given to her by carers! N was beside herself because she was adamant she was taken them properly, the doctor turned up and she had been taking the right amount of tablets!
So that carer is never to be sent to her house again!
N likes me to be there whilst the carers are there because of this so although I only clean officially for an hour a day Monday through to Friday I'm actually there for a lot longer. Today was three hours and last week I was there for six hours one day as social services turned up, then an assessor for her care plan, also a lady to test her lifeline. It was bedlam!
Her son should hopefully come out of hospital by the middle of next week, so hopefully I should be able to step back a bit.
That's the theory anyway!
Last night the lady that had polio rang me to say she had a fall a couple of days ago and her wrist was hurting, she was going to call the doctor today which she did.
I then had a phone call from that doctor and got very confused because it was the same one that came out for N with the alleged overdose, so when she said she thought , let's call her J had a broken wrist I thought she was talking about N!
Anyway she wondered if I could take J to A & E for an xray.
Three and a half hours of the delights of our local  hospitals emergency department found us with J in a plaster cast. She'd broken the little knobbly bone on the outside of her left wrist.
All of this has resulted in us not eating tea until nine at night and me being rushed off my feet.
Eden left school over a week ago and had a little party where she and some friends had a bonfire and burnt old unneeded school books and in some cases uniforms!
My Mum and Step dad are away at the moment so she's staying there until Thursday when she has her school prom.
Life has been hectic, fraught, I've been extremely angry at social services who swan in and out of houses and do very little actual work but expect you to do it for them!
They wanted me to ring round for a private cleaner to do N's loo but I refused. Apparently it was only a matter  of looking through the Yellow Pages and making a few phone calls! I told them if it was that easy then they could do it!
Tomorrow I'm meant to be at N's for an hour to do housework, then go food shopping for us and then in the afternoon Eden and three friends are going to wash, hoover and decorate the minibus with artificial flowers as we are transporting fourteen of Edens friends to prom in it.
So I think that had brought you up to date, I hope to continue to blog but firstly I thought it wouldn't be right to blog about this lady but she was taking over my life so much it was all I had to blog about and I just wasn't getting the time.
I think it's so sad and I'm sure this is happening to people all over the place.
I know progression is good but sometimes the olden days could teach us a lot.
Years ago the women of the road would get together and run a hoover round or flick a duster and make a casserole for neighbours who were having problems. Nowadays people live in all sorts of conditions behind closed doors and nobody knows nor do they care. Out of 30 houses V and me are the only ones doing anything for this lady, yet other neighbours come up and ask when NS will be out of hospital so news has traveled but people are too caught up in their own lives to offer help.
I find it so very sad.