In memory of my Dad

I am off for two weeks to be with my mum again. You'll be pleased to know that I am taking Snoopy with me this time, as I am going by car. Now I have a laptop at long last, I can take it with me too and hope to keep in touch with the blogging world and emails rather than having to wait till I get back and plough through what I have missed. I hope to set up broadband at my mother's, so it will be a bit of a luxury for me. I am going for a number of reasons: to do a lot of household chores for my mum; to take her out and about; to get away from the alcoholic daze madhouse; to spend some time with my two bestest friends (we are having a long-needed reunion weekend nearby); and to be with my mum for "a very important reason".


The 1st February is a very important date in our family calendar. It is the date my dearly loved father was ripped from our midst nine years ago. I have not always been able to be with my mother at this time, as in the past I had other commitments, but this year, thankfully, I have the freedom to do as I choose. My father was (to me) a very special man who almost didn't make it past the age of 14 let alone the age he reached. His life was remarkable. I wrote about him before here. Not a day goes by when I don't look at a huge photo of him by my bedside. He is sorely missed by me and my mother who still sheds bucketloads of tears for him - they were soulmates. Dad was instrumental in giving Kay her love for medicine (see here). He would be so proud of her and so upset to see what has become of Greg and me. I sometimes "talk" to him and ask him for his advice. I like to think he is listening. I still miss him so very much. It does not seem possible that it is already the ninth anniversary.

Bacherlor daze

I have just returned from a few days away at my mother's as she had a few hospital/optician's appointments to attend. I did not take the car with me this time, as the weather forecasts had predicted more snow and ice. I did not want to be stranded anywhere en route, so I took the train instead. Because of that, Snoopy could not come with me as I could not lug all his belongings (bed/bowls etc) as well as mine.

Number of days away from home to help my mother: 4
Number of days enjoying myself : 4
Number of days Greg and the animals were left to fend for themselves: 4
Number of essential medical pills consumed by Greg: 0
Amount of food taken from the fridge/freezer in my absence: 0
Number of times Greg got dressed in my absence: 0
Amount of walks Snoopy had in my absence : 0
Number of times Snoopy and the cat were fed: not known
Tax forms which he insisted he was going to complete this week: 0
Number of bottles of whisky consumed: 5*

* hidden around the house before my departure as Greg is clinically dependent on them, but cannot drive or walk to get them himself! Once a day he rang me to ask where the next bottle could be found.

more photos

Is supper ready yet?

Someone tell Mum that Twelfth Night is over.

Please!


Did you want something........?


...otherwise I'll go back to sleep.

My favourite picture

Dulwich Divorcee has kindly nominated me for a meme to display my favourite photo and say why. It has certainly challenged me because there are any number of different types of photo I could put up, but to chose one to be the all-time favourite is another matter.

If sheer quantity of photos were the deciding factor, it would have to be one of Kay. I have thousands of photos of Kay. Her godfather once joked that when his own daughter was a baby, he took thousands of photos in the first few weeks and had them developed in the one-hour processing service. Then when the child was a toddler, he took hundreds of photos and had them developed in the 24-hour service. By the time the child was a teenager, there were only a few photos here and there which were sent off annually to the developers and returned a week or so later. We found this story amusing at the time, but oh so true now. There are several albums of when Kay was a small baby and perhaps one as a toddler and one to cover the entire teenage years. However, it is not to Kay that I look for the source of my photo, as our anonymity is paramount to my blog story.

I then look through all my holiday snaps and there are indeed places which have delighted me and conjured up all sorts of memories when I look at them. Some are of the places where I lived abroad and others where I just passed through. But trying to choose one over the other is difficult. They are all special in their own different ways.

The one I have finally chosen is of Snoopy, our loveable dog, as much a member of our family as any human. Let me tell you why I love this photo and the background to it.........

When Kay was a toddler, we decided to go on a camping trip. She loved it so much, we went lots of times after that. Our favourite place for a weekend escape was in the New Forest and, if you have never stayed there, it is well worth a visit as the wild horses roam all over the roads and forests and even in and out of the designated campsites. We have seen many a pony stick its head inside a tent if it smells food. But one year, when Kay was about three, we camped on a sheep farm up in Yorkshire for a change. During our summer evening stroll round the farmyard, Kay was attacked by one of the farmer's border collie sheepdogs. It wasn't a vicious attack, thank goodness, as the dog was chained up and could only reach so far, but it did manage to grab Kay by her trouser leg. It was a close call. Fortunately Greg was able to give the dog a hefty kick and it released its grip. We were later told by the farmer that the dog had been taunted by the farmer's grandchildren earlier that day and the dog was obviously getting its own back on the nearest child to come near it, which just happened to be Kay.

To say Kay was traumatised by that event is an understatement. She would cower whenever she saw a dog coming towards her and refuse to pat a dog despite our reassurances or those of the owner that no harm would come to her. By the time she was seven, it was beginning to take on phobia proportions and, because Greg and I love dogs and had both had dogs as family pets when we were children, we decided it was important to get Kay over this fear as soon as possible. We were going to get Kay a dog.

Kay was OK about the idea but less so about the practical reality. On our first visit to Battersea Dogs Home, she was fine looking at the dogs as long as they were behind the bars of their cages, but when she excitedly chose a black labrador cross breed called Charlie to inspect more intimately, she later backed in utter terror against a wall of the room we had been shown to, as soon as the dog was brought in to get to know us. Sadly we did not take Charlie home that day and even had a complete rethink about getting a dog at all. We returned to Battersea several times after that, as well as other rescue centres in the area, but always with the same result. Kay was terrified close up to any dog. Eventually we accepted that Kay would only be happy with anything with a leg at each corner, as long as it was a cat or a hamster or a gerbil. I remember Greg saying with vehemence that we were not having a rodent in OUR house, as the little critter might get loose and we would never find it again in our house with all the stairs and hiding places. So we settled on cats and ended up chosing two kittens at a rescue centre not far from us. As they were not ready to leave their mother yet, we had to wait a while and visited them once or twice to see their progress before the handover. On one such visit, I mentioned that we would have really liked to get a dog and the kennel maid didn't need telling twice. She dragged Kay and me over to an enclosure where there were two puppies remaining from a litter of six. They were a cross between a Manchester Terrier and a German Shepherd. The Manchester Terrier gave them the colouring; the German Shepherd contributed to their size. Of the two puppies, Snoopy was the runt of the litter, very submissive and therefore much more suitable for a little girl, particularly one who was nervous of dogs. Snoopy also needed some tender loving care and therefore a quiet home with a little girl and lots of love was a perfect match for him too. We went into his enclosure and he rolled on his back and widdled in the air. It was love at first sight.....for him, for Kay, for Greg and for me. We signed on the dotted line straight away.

A week later, once all the innoculations and paperwork had been done, we were the proud owners of two kittens and a puppy. It was bedlem toilet-training all three of them, working out the general care for them and coping with their anxieties at being abandoned overnight. I can remember Greg sleeping on the kitchen floor in a sleeping bag to keep all three company for the first few nights. (They were the happy days before Greg became an alcoholic.) Kay was delighted with this new menagerie and would invite all her friends over to see them and pet them.

To cut a very long story short, Snoopy did the trick. He got Kay over her fear in a flash. As she grew, so did he, so she was not at all afraid by the time he reached full adult height. Because of his size and colouring, many people think he is a doberman. If I had a pound for every time I have been asked if he is a doberman, I would be a millionairess, but his head is a different shape for a start. He looks as if he ought to tear your arm out and he can be quite an alarming sight when he rushes to greet callers at the front door, but in reality he is such a soft, gentle animal who would more than likely lick you to death. He has his own pet passport and has travelled abroad many times in the car with us. Because of his sensitive nature, he does not like to be left alone, so we always make a point of taking him with us, where at all possible, rather than leave him on his own in the house. He still does not like to be left alone at night and because we are rather soft in that department, we have allowed him to sleep with us in the bedrooms and (shock, horror) even on our beds. Fortunately he is not a smelly dog, in fact he has the most amazingly comforting aroma about him, which makes you want to nuzzle into him, and he does not drool either like some dogs do.

And so to THE PHOTO...... I have chosen this particular one of Snoopy because it shows such detail. If you click on it, you will even see his lips. I love all the little whiskers round his mouth too. Those lovely brown eyes can just make you melt and give in to him. They follow you around until you are forced to put on your boots and take him for a long walk in the park. I have this photo on my laptop desktop. We shall certainly miss him when he goes to that big kennel in the sky: not something we like to think about too often, particularly as he is nearly eleven. He has not only served his original purpose but has enriched our lives with his love and devotion.

Rather than nominate anyone to do this meme, I shall open it up to the first five to comment. Meanwhile, here is that picture of Snoopy..........................

New year, same old stuff

A new year always makes us feel full of expectation that things will change for the better. As you progress through the previous year and get towards the end, there is a mental and physical countdown towards the Christmas festivities: buying in food, presents, decorating the tree etc and after that another countdown to the very end of the year. Then, one minute you are at 11.59pm on 31 December, awaiting that stroke of midnight, raising glasses to the future, hugging friends and family and the next you are jettisoned into a new year and it is 00.01 am on 1 January: a whole new year ahead of you. Like a Time Lord, that minute between being at the end of one year and the beginning of the next is very disorientating and makes you feel that you ought to embrace the new year with a new you. I am sure that is why people make new year resolutions, otherwise they could surely try to give up smoking/start a diet/exercise more/donate more to charity (or whatever people resolve to do) in June or in October or on the May Day bank holiday.

I suppose I always hope that Greg is miraculously going to stop drinking overnight, which, I know, is a physical impossibilty as he is clinically dependent on drinking and cannot suddenly go without alcohol without serious medical implications. He would have to be weaned off it slowly with drugs, as has happened several times before in the past when he has been hospitalised. And so I start a new year with much looking the same, if not worse than before.

At Christmas, I tried to keep things jolly for Kay's and my Mum's sakes. Kay and I decorated the hall, the stairs, the lounge and the kitchen with tinsel and baubles and trees. Everything sparkled in the glow of the house and contrasted with the frosty, snowy weather outside. I bought copious amounts of food (estimating the feeding of the five thousand) and we chomped our way though turkey and five vegetables on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and several days thereafter. There were platters of chocolates, nuts, dates, more chocolates. We groaned and ate, ate and groaned. (I've put on a good half-stone to prove it!) We watched films on TV and tried to be jolly.


But Greg had other plans. He continued his drinking regime, seemingly not impressed that it was Chrismas or that Kay and my mother (or, God forbid, me)might want something different of him just for once. He spent most of the Christmas days, dressed in a dressing gown, his legs bare and covered in sores or yesterday's spilled tomato soup that he had heated up for himself. He made no effort to wash or comb his hair. On Christmas Day morning he opened his presents with us all in the lounge and then passed out on the sofa where he stayed until lunchtime. I meanwhile had been slaving away cooking the turkey, the five vegetables, the starter, the dessert and all the trimmings. I woke him about 20 minutes before lunch and suggested he might get freshened up (euphemism for "have a wash for once in your life") and dressed. Just as I was about to serve up the starter he sat down at the table - in his dressing gown, bare sore legs and clearly he had not washed either. I asked him to please make an effort, just for Christmas lunch and you would have thought I had asked him to recite the 17 x multiplication table naked in Trafalgar Square. He shouted and ranted that I was being unreasonable and he continued to shout and rant all though the starter and into the main course. He had no appetite and most of his meals ended up in the bin. He flaked out asleep on the sofa for most of the rest of the day, only participating to rant and rage when I asked him if he wanted any supper. Apparently I was making a fuss in asking him that simple question and he did not want a fuss. The remainder of the Christmas days followed a similar pattern, so that Kay, my mother and I tried not to engage in any conversation with him for fear of setting him off. My mother would even ostensibly steer the conversation away from any controversial subjects when she saw Greg's temper rising and sometimes it worked.

I tried to be the all-singing, all-dancing act to make things good for Kay and my mother. Kay is an owl and likes to stay up late to watch films on TV; my mother on the other hand is a lark and wakes at the crack of dawn, so I found myself forcing myself out of bed to bring my mother her early morning tea in bed (despite her entreaties for me to have a lie-in) and I stayed up long after the call of duty (on one occasion until 3am) to keep Kay company in the late evenings. One night, however,I was so exhausted, I promised myself a lie-in, took a tablet to help me sleep and withdrew at midnight to the spare bedroom with the dog. At around 6am, Snoopy nudged me awake. I groaned and told him to lie back on his bed. Thankfully, he did and I went off to sleep again. At 6.45am he nudged me awake again. Drowsily I invited him to jump up on the bed beside me. As he settled down alongside me, I was vaguely aware that he was trembling. In my half-sleep, I imagined he must be cold, so I reached for his blanket on the floor and covered him over. But still he trembled and at some point in my subconsciousnes, I realised this was not right and sat bolt upright in bed. As I went to open the bedroom door, he made a noise and ejected the entire liquid contents of his bowels onto my cream-coloured bedroom carpet. As we went down the four flights of stairs to the kitchen he offloaded another two dollops of liquid mush all over the floor and yet another lot in the garden. I was awake by that point and far from thoughts of making the first cup of tea, I was up to my armpits in disinfectant, carpet shampoo, soapy suds and kitchen towel. Not the best job to wake up to or at any other time for that matter. I was just feeling pleased with myself a good half an hour later when I had cleaned all that up, when Snoopy decided to vomit in two different places as well. Poor thing had obviously eaten something dodgy to be emptying out from both ends. I am pleased to say that, after that, he made a quick recovery and has been fine since. Not so my carpet unfortunately: I shall have to get in an industrial carpet cleaner at some stage in the next few days.

So now it is a new year - the end of a decade - twenty ten or two thousand and ten (however you prefer to say it). The expectation of new life, changes, sweep-clean. Out with the old; in with the new. My hopes soar, as always, to hope for better things, good health, wealth and success, but looking at Greg, I see an old man, wizened by the alcohol, in physical agony, too apathetic to eat, wash or take medication, on the brink of another medical crisis. His sole drive is to maintain the level of alcohol in his system for fear of withdrawal symptoms. His consumption now teeters on about 1.5 bottles a day (about a litre) of whisky despite his promises a few weeks ago to reduce from the one bottle he was on). So he is moving in the wrong direction ever further away from abstinence and from good health and ultimately from me. And somehow already on this fourth day into the new year, I just know this year is going to be tough.

O Come all ye Faithful

I went to the local supermarket this morning to get all the Christmas food I can only buy at the last minute such as vegetables, cream, cheese, bacon for the turkey and pigs-in-blankets. I always try to avoid going out on Christmas Eve as it is always so busy and in any case I like to spend the time at home getting organised, preparing and cooking. I thought I was being extra clever this year by going not only the day before Christmas Eve, as I usually do, but TWO days before. I have arranged to collect my mother from her home and bring her here tomorrow (I have been dithering about when best to do it as I was waiting to see what the weather was going to do and whether we would get snowed in), so today was really my last chance to get the last-minute food in.

Despite the fresh fall of snow last night, on top of the snow still lying around from last week, the main roads were clear and I only needed to slip and slither the car out of our cul-de-sac. When I arrived at the supermarket car park about a mile away, I encountered my first exposure to pandemonium. There was hardly a space available in the enormous car park. We are talking upwards of about 800 parking bays and nearly every one full. The ground was awash with slushy snow and huge puddles full of floating ice. I drove around and around until I found the last parking bay in England! This should of course have let off alarm bells but I valiantly sailed through the icy air into the oasis of the store with my trolley expecting the usual number of customers. What met my eyes once I was already cocooned in the warmth was utter chaos. I could not believe my eyes. Was there a war on? A lorry drivers' strike maybe? Armageddon on the way? The crowds were pushing and shoving (I have the bruises to prove it); there were trolley jams in every aisle; there appeared to be impromptu coffee-morning meetings being held in the middle of some aisles; they were four deep picking over the clementines and brussel sprouts. While I was waiting my turn hoping to have some contact with the tubs of custard, I had a trolley pushed up my back, as if I were invisible and not myself waiting for some large person with a trolley in front of me to budge. The staff looked just as fed up as they tried to stock up the depleted items with replenishments. To start with I politely hung back to let others through narrow bottlenecks (caused by huge pyramids newly-stacked in mid aisle of exciting offers like mince pies or turkey foil) but after it became apparent that it was every man for himself, I sharpened my elbows and battled forwards with a blank I'm-not-to- be-messed-with look. The touble was, a few others had that same sort of look too and carried it off far more menacingly than me.

I am pleased to say I made it to the checkout with only a few bruises and most of my sanity vaguely intact, though to be honest I was that stressed I might have had a bit of trouble remembering my own name if pushed. As I left there were more people adding to the throng. There were several cars eyeing up my car bay as I backed out of it. I suspect they might have had to call in the local constabulary to deal with the fights. I was glad to be out of there. On unloading it all at home again, I realised I had forgotten the gravy. I'm certainly not going back there again. Do you think I can get away with turkey in a custard sauce instead?

Happy Christmas

Things start to get busy over the days leading up to Christmas. For a start, tomorrow, I have to have my boobs squashed flat as a pancake in one of those medieval torture-chamber mammogram machines. It's a routine three-yearly check-up that we poor old fifty-somethings have to go through and I don't much relish it. It always hurts and the whole procedure can only have been invented by a man. If men had to have their genitalia pincered paper-thin in a similar fashion, they would have invented an alternative pretty damn quickly.

Snow permitting (and we have had a fair bit of sleet/snow in London today) I hope to collect my mother by car after the weekend and bring her back to the alcoholic daze madhouse for the Christmas period. She did say she wouldn't mind if she spent Christmas on her own. I was not sure whether that was code for "please don't make me endure yet another Christmas with Greg" or whether she was just being considerate, trying to spare me the drive in both directions, as she hates to see me chasing my tail, which I invariably do. Anyhow, I have said there is no way I would see her spend Christmas on her own with a solitary chicken leg for her lunch, so she will be with us, whether she likes it or not. Greg spends most of his time asleep on a dining chair downstairs anyway, so my mum, Kay and I will be separate from him in the lounge upstairs. We'll try our best to eat as much chocolate as we can and fall asleep during the films.

Kay is already back from uni and we have been having lots of girlie chats and catch-up conversations. She seems so mature after just one term and is fascinating to listen to.

I leave you with the following carol to get you in the Christmas mood. Many thanks to all of you who over the past year have offered advice, a shoulder to cry on, or have just been there for me. I appreciate it very much.

Happy (or should that be merry) Christmas ....from Rosiero

Easy Christmas cake

There is still time to make a cake before Christmas and I thought I'd share this highly unusual
recipe with you.

INGREDIENTS

1 bottle of whisky

250 gm butter
1 cup plain flour
4 large eggs
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 cup brown sugar
1 teasp. baking powder
2 cups dried fruit
1 tablesp. lemon juice


METHOD

1. Sample whisky to check for quality.

2. Take a large bowl. Check the whisky again to make sure that it is of the highest quality.

3. Turn on the mixer. Beat the butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one spoontea of sugar and beat again.

4. Make sure the whisky is still OK. Cry another cup.

5. Turn off the mixer. Break two leggs, add to the bowl and chuck in the dried fruit. If the fruit gets stuck to the beaters, pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the whisky again to check for tonsisticity.

6. Add two cups of salt, or something - who cares? Check the whisky.

7. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one handful of brown sugar, or whatever colour you can find. Wix mel. Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 180 degrees centi-thingy.

8. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window. Check the whisky.

9. Stagger down to the local supermarket and buy one of their cakes. Pretend you made it yourself. Drink the remaining whisky.

Please do not try this at home!! You have been warned.

The Christmas letter

Every year, for some considerable time now, when I write my Christmas cards, I include a computer-written round-robin letter in them, telling people what we have been doing during the past year. First, it saves having to hand-write a letter to every one of the hundred or so we send cards to, secondly it keeps people we haven't seen for a while up to date and thirdly I actually love receiving similar kinds of letters from other people at Christmas. If I have been unable to see them for two, three, four, ten years, it is a nice way of catching up with their news. I also keep copies of my own letters, so over a period of time, I can look back and see what we did in any given year. One of our acquaintances has said in the past that they felt insulted receiving the same printed newsletter from us sent to all and sundry, but apart from that one person, most have said they look forward to receiving them and hearing our news.

Over the last few years I have had increasing trouble knowing what to write about Greg. Only a small handful of people know there is anything wrong with Greg apart from his diabetes and heart trouble. They know nothing whatsoever about the alcoholism. The first person I ever shared the problem with, about four years ago, was Greg's sister and for a long time she was the only other person who knew. Then my mother witnessed things at first hand when she stayed over with us one Christmas. Then a year or so further on, Greg's mother (who is sadly no longer with us) found out. Gradually I felt brave enough to share my dilemma with my two closest friends and finally, eighteen months ago, Kay's teacher, who needed to know in case Kay's school work suffered. In fact, it was the telling of the teacher that finally pushed me into writing my blog, because that was the first (and only) person outside close friends and family whom I had told and that seemed to give me courage to get things off my chest into cyberspace. However, apart from those six people, the rest of our circle of friends, neighbours and family know absolutely nothing at all. Some might have guessed (certainly neighbours in recent months), but most have no idea at all. I have often had to make excuses to others about Greg's absence from social gatherings, about why he doesn't drive anywhere these days or about his hospitalisations. The usual excuse is that he has problems resulting from diabetes and the poor circulation in his legs. It is true he has those complaints but they are not of course solely the reasons for his absences, inability to drive or hospitalisations. I have even blamed his absences on the fact that he has to babysit for the dog. I sometimes wonder if I should just come clean and tell everyone the truth as the situation arises, but then I feel I might somehow be disloyal to Greg, doing the dirty on him, washing our linen in public. (I suppose the same could be said of this blog, but then I do try to cover up our real identity, so Greg's privacy is protected.)

Up until this year there was always equal news in our newsletters about all three of us. However, my Christmas letter this year contains lots of news about Kay and myself. There is a very small paragraph buried in the middle just to say Greg had been ill in hospital again and was now housebound. He read my draft through a few days ago and commented "there's not much about me in it". What more could I write? That he drinks all day? Watches TV from morning till the following early morning and naps on the dining chair at odd times of the day? That he has all sorts of illnesses building up from the excess of alcohol? That his hygiene has gone to seed? That he never goes anywhere or does anything? Perhaps I could make up something, such as he is planning to climb Killimanjaro or has taken up stamp-collecting? I asked him what he would like me to write instead. He thought for a minute and then said my draft was fine.

Accolades and Setbacks

Thank you Rebel Mother

Thank you Infactorium

On the accolade front, I should like to thank Infactorium and Rebel Mother for thinking of little old me when handing out the above awards. I really am amazed that people think of me as worth reading. Remember, I am doing this partly to get things off my chest, partly to alert people to the problems of living with alcoholism and partly to reach out to others in the same boat. That anyone should think I deserve a reward honestly comes as a bit of a shock. Anyway, many thanks Infactorium and Rebel Mother. I have pounced on so many people of late with awards, that I feel it is time to leave them alone , and not pass on these awards for the moment, although I am sure there are many who deserve it more than me. Hope that is all right.

So far as setbacks is concerned, you may remember I was having my cholesterol level monitored (see here) and had managed last time to keep it down (and avoid taking statins) by sticking hard to a self-designed diet full of pulses, oats and fruit/veg. The doctor had asked me to have another fasting blood test six months later and I went for the results of this a few days ago. I have to admit my "diet" had gone to pot over the summer and autumn months and I was not eating porridge any more (not one of my favourite foods I have to say), and had been comfort-eating, as I always do when I am stressed, with such naughty things as chocolate peanuts, chocolate anything and crisps. But I did partly deliberately go back to eating rubbish to see what effect it would have on my cholesterol levels. I knew things were not looking good, because my waistbands were getting a bit tight. (I think my clothes must have shrunk in the wash, ehem!) Anyway, the doctor confirmed my cholesterol levels had risen again. She asked if there was any history of strokes or heart attacks in my family. Most of my mother's side have gone with strokes; most of my father's side with heart attacks. I could see the horror on her face. Given my age, the genetic risk and my high levels of cholesterol, she said she should really be prescribing me statins. I have tried to hold out against statins, because of the known side efects of these little blighters, but I waved the white flag and agreed to start , with the proviso that if they made me ill, I would stop. So I have been taking them for the last few days now. I must admit, it means I can eat a rubbish diet now and again without feeling too guilty, because the statins will do their stuff overnight to eliminate cholesterol. Watch this space. Another blood test in two months to see what progress the statins have made.

Rollercoaster

I seem to be on a proverbial rollercoaster at the moment, hence my absence over the last few weeks. There have been lots of highs, lots of lows and some scary white-knuckle bits in the middle. Quite frankly, I'd be glad to get off onto terra firma for a while if I could.

For a start, I am leading a dual sort of existence in two places sixty miles apart. One is with my mother. I went to visit her at the beginning of November for two weeks. We had a great time together, sharing laughs and memories. I also did the usual hard work felling two enormous holly trees and taking then to the local dump. I prepared her garden for the winter and took anything extraneous to the dump. I shredded loads of paperwork and took that to the dump too. I washed net curtains, cleaned windows, filled her larder and freezer with food and walked the dog inbetween. I don't mind hard work. It can be therapeutic and helps me work out and de-stress. In the middle of all that my mother got a call from the local hospital - they had had a cancellation and they were inviting her to have her other cataract operation while I was still there. So I was able to drive her to the hospital, hold her hand while we waited in the conveyor-belt queue, drive her home again, remove the eye patch the next day and administer the first antibiotic eye drops.

Then I had to get back home to run my other existence. The one where I live with Greg in a semi-nightmare world. He is back to drinking big-time. Back on a full bottle of whisky a day. Back to not eating. Back to not caring for his hygiene. In addition he has had upset tummy problems which alternate between constipation and diarrhoea. Because of his leg problems and inability to walk very fast, he is not making it to the toilet in time. I shall spare you the graphic details of what my involvement is when his diarrhoea meets his inability to walk quickly. Let's just say it is not pleasant. The words he uttered to the social worker in hospital when he declined her offer of back-up services at home keep coming back to me. "We can manage" Like hell, we can! While I was away at my mother's he managed to drive himself to the local hospital for some laser treatment on his feet, supposedly to help with the tingling feeling in his feet caused by the diabetes. He had several sessions. He also had to see the diabetic consultant on one occasion and, smelling drink on him at 10.30 in the morning, she refused to let him drive home, ordered him a taxi and made him leave his car in the hospital carpark. He picked it up the following morning - still intoxicated. He rang me at my mother's to tell me and was so humiliated and embarrassed..... unfortunately not enough to make a jot of difference to his drinking.

The best bit of the rollercoaster has been that Kay came home this weekend as she had a prizegiving at school and had to pick up her prize and A-level certificates. It was great seeing her again, as it was the first time we had seen one another since September. We have spoken on the phone lots, emailed, texted on our mobile phones, but not met. Either she has been busy with academic work or making new friends, so there has not been an opportunity up until now. For those who have asked, she is settling in well now and making friends from all over the UK and beyond. When she walked through the door, she looked so much more confident and older. We nattered a lot and she showed me some of her essays - written in entire gobbledegook, so far as my non-scientific brain could decipher. How she can cope with all that bio-chemical jargon is a mystery. Greg and I did foreign languages at uni, but bio-chemistry is a language all on its own! I put her on the train back to uni last night, but our parting was not at all tearful. She was happy to be returning to her new life and I was happy that she was happy... but roll on Christmas!!!

Kreativ Blogger Award

Nechtan recently very kindly passed on to me the 'Kreativ Blogger' Award, for which I belatedly thank him. I always feel so false accepting such "awards", as, after all, I am only telling my story, but accept it I do and very humbly so. The rules of the award are as follows:

1. Thank the person who gave this to you.
2. Copy the logo and place it in your blog.
3. Link the person who nominated you.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that no one would really know.
5. Nominate seven 'Kreativ Bloggers.'

1.2. and 3. I've thanked Nechtan above, linked him and put the logo on.

4. Now to the difficult bit. Can I scratch together 7 things about me...Hmmm....let's see

i) I have a special attraction to Cornwall, because my husband and I were engaged whilst on a holiday there and spent our honeymoon there a year later.

ii) I adore Thomas Hardy novels.

iii) I am currently fascinated by anything to do with Charles Darwin.

iv) Kit Courteney has reminded me that I have a thing about numbers and can get quite excited if the clock reads, say 12:34 or 12:21 or 09:09. Anything where it seems to be numerically in a pattern.

v) I love going for long walks and kicking up leaves in the autumn.

vi) I would far rather skip the main course and go straight for the dessert.

vii) I am hard of hearing ( a genetic condition) and have been for the last twenty years. Don't feel sorry for me..... it can come in very handy sometimes.

There. I bet you are all glued to your seats with shock or excitement or both! Oh well, suit yourselves.

5. And so to the nomination of seven others..... There are so many creative bloggers on my reading list, but I have chosen those whom I have not burdened for a long time. Sorry if I have chosen someone who is busy at the moment, but feel free to decline if you want to. I understand.

Working Mum on the Verge
Not Waving but Drowning
Rebel Mother
Just Twaddle
Fat Frumpy and Fifty
Retired and Crazy
Liebfraumilch and Lipstick

P.S. Off to my mother again for another ten days. Back soon.

Halloween time again

Yesterday history repeated itself in a strange kind of way. This is what I wrote last year......

We live in a small cul-de-sac off a fairly busy road in London. There are 32 houses in the cul-de-sac and everyone knows everyone else by name. Quite rare by any standards, let alone in somewhere as large as London. The children all play with one another and are in and out of one another's' houses. It was great when Kay was growing up, because, as an only child, she always had someone to play with at the click of a finger at any time of day. There is a new generation of children now since Kay outgrew such things - out playing on their bikes, pushing toy prams, playing football. The cul-de-sac is a village all of its own and we are quite separate from the goings-on in the main road. Halloween is always a special time here, when all the cul-de-sac children go around in a large clump knocking at doors to trick or treat. The grown-ups go round with them, keeping a safe distance so as not to destroy their child's feeling of independence, yet watching over them in case they fall into the wrong hands. In the past, when Kay was little, I was known to host small dinner parties for the children before the tricking and treating commenced. On the menu would be bloody eyeballs (scoops of water melon), followed by dead man's fingers (sausages) with worms in blood sauce (spaghetti in tomato sauce). Kay and I found one of the home-made menu-cards yesterday while we were searching for the battery-lit pumpkin.

Before it got dark, we prepared a basket full of chocolate mini bars to hand out to any callers that might come by and hung the plastic pumpkin on the front door. At seven o'clock yesterday evening, then, Kay was getting ready to go out to a teenage party at a friend's house. All black dress, high heels and red lipstick. Not a pointed hat or white sheet with holes for her. Definitely not cool. Suddenly the doorbell rang. We opened the front door to find about twenty monsters, ghosts and ghouls standing on our doorstep. They ranged from those who could barely toddle and still in nappies to those who were at the age of eleven or thereabouts. All looking fabulously scary and holding out bags for their treats. Their parents stood much further back, shivering in the chilly night. Wanting them to work a bit for their treats, we playfully asked the group what they would do, if we did not give them anything. A little witch, not much older than four with blonde ringlets, acted as spokesperson at the front of the group.

"We would trick you", she shouted. The others all nodded and giggled in agreement.

"So what would that involve?", we asked.

The little blond witch thought long and hard, biting her bottom lip, and then blurted out with all the aplomb of the Godfather delivering his sentence.....

"I'd say BOO". Her little face was a picture. In fact, I'd say a real treat. The chocolate bars were passed around.

Swing forward one year to last night. A few changes but more of the same. The same little group knocked on my door, standing a few inches taller and one year older, with a few more younger ones in nappies added to the crowd. There they stood giggling and expectant. The parents stood further back shivering in the cold. Two hundred miles away Kay was getting ready for a Halloweeen party with her new friends. Was I scared by all these little ghosts and witches? Not a bit.... I felt toasty warm inside remembering the lovely times I had with Kay at that age.

Bedtime story.

Well I am back home for a couple of weeks and back to reality. Greg's promises were not worth the breath he spent on them. He has started drinking again in my absence. He has the cheek to say he needs to buy a small bottle every day to avoid the withdrawal symptoms. I pointed out that when he left hospital two weeks ago he had no withdrawal symptoms at all as the hospital had virtually detoxed him while he was an in-patient, but it seems he drank several large bottles in my absence last week, then saw the error of his ways and by then had to contend with new withdrawal symptoms instead. Stupid man.

There is more.....We are having painter/decorators in our cul-de-sac settlement at the moment painting the outsides of our houses. We pay a monthly contribution to a painting fund and every few years, the painters are instructed to come along to start work. So this month is the due time. While I was away, the painters knocked at the door, Greg hobbled to open it and was told they were about to undercoat our front entrance door. Once undercoated, it needed to remain open for a while to allow the paint to dry. Greg decided to leave the door open over the expected drying time, well into the dark evening hours. A well-meaning neighbour opposite was a little concerned that our front door was wide open and, as there were no lights on in the house, she came across to investigate. Even more worrying, she could hear sounds of a television emenating from the basement kitchen. She enlisted the help of our neighbours next door and asked the husband to enter the house and see if Greg was all right. As fate would have it, Greg had embarked on one of his drinking sprees and was fast asleep on a dining chair in front of the TV with no lights on. The neighbour tried to wake him, but Greg was in one of his almost comotose-like slumbers. He was not to be woken. The neighbours by now were very concerned, knowing that Greg has diabetes, and called an ambulance. Greg came to, to find he was surrounded by paramedics taking his blood pressure and blood-sugar levels. Embarassment on all sides and the neighbours and paramedics quietly withdrew. Greg rang me up at my mother's to relay the tale. My life at present is peppered with one amazing story or another. It just can't get any worse. Can it?

Rest in Peace.

My computer has died. It's only about two years old but it seems to have given up the ghost. A computer engineer gave it the last rites this morning. Greg's computer, on which I am now quickly writing, has come out in mourning and it seems may be also heading for the great big scrapyard in the sky. Which leaves me totally blogless at the moment. You may therefore have a few weeks' silence from me until I manage to acquire a shiny new laptop which I can then take to and fro to my mother's house, once I have initiated a broadband connection there. (Yay)

Meanwhile, I am heading for my mother's house for a week or so, as I desperately need to do a few chores for her, not least grapple with the gardening. The weeds always seem to grow a foot high in my absences and as thick as before. I had hoped to visit her for much longer than a week, but I have been to the Citizen's Advice Bureau for some advice and legal help and they are so snowed under with people seeking credit crunch help that the earliest they can advise me is late October, so I have to be back again for that interview. In the meantime I shall try if I can to read your blogs and will be back as soon as is technically possible, but if I can't you will know why.

Greg is quite happy for me to leave him and he assures me he will manage on his own. Mind you, when I look at him creeping around the house behind his zimmer frame, I do wonder. Going up stairs takes forever and standing up or sitting down is a work in progress. But he is adamant that I should visit my mother as he is just as concerned about her as I am. If he has any thoughts about getting alcohol behind my back, he will have a job to get the car accelerator and brake pedals pushed down with those weak legs! (His reply is that he won't be going back to drinking alcohol. Ever. Watch this space) Meanwhile Kay is settling down well in her new home and has started her medicine lectures. Her homesickness is diminishing and now when she rings me up she sounds very cheerful. So all's well on that front and gives me the freedom now to devote my time to my mother. Bye for now.....

Sky high

The discharge letter from the hospital shows the following liver values in Greg's blood. If you are an expert, you will know what these mean. If, like me, you have absolutely no idea what they stand for, at least you can see that Greg's values are way over what should be normal.

Normal range (Greg's)

ALT 8 - 20 (103)

ALP 20 - 70 (113)

Bilirubin 0.1 - 1.0 (11)

GGT 0 - 65 (1500)

AST 8 - 20 (262)

It doesn't take an expert to see that Greg's liver is decidedly unhappy, to put it politely.

The bad news is that he is still creeping around in control of a zimmer frame at a pace slower than a tortoise, he is sleeping a good deal of the time and back to smoking ten cigarettes a day (it would be more but I am rationing them! Remember, it's the smoking that is causing the poor circulation in his legs.) The good news is that his appetite is returning and he is eating healthily. And so far not a drop of alcohol has touched his lips since he went into hospital ten days ago, but then he has not been able to drive out himself to get any. He was of course weaned off it in hospital, so is no longer alcohol-dependent. It is just a question of whether when he is able to drive again, he will find himself in a shop that sells it! Watch this space!

Because of a computer breakdown and a need to tidy the house, I was out of action for the last few days, so have been unable to do some of the things I was planning to do, which include visiting my GP for advice, talking to THAT social worker and getting advice from my nearest Citizen's Advice Bureau. All grist to my mill for making some decisions.

Thank you

Thank you so much for your sympathetic and encouraging comments in my outpourings yesterday. I feel very humbled and comforted by your generosity to help and feel I owe you a calmer explanatory post today. A good night's sleep has helped and, although I am still extremely angry, I am more able to cope today.

Yesterday had started reasonably OK. I had planned to go to an Al-anon meeting in the morning and then in the afternoon go on to my daily visit to Greg in hospital. I have been a member of Al-anon for the past year. I started going after Greg's detox in September a year ago. I have reported on it here. I still find it hard to get into the spirit of things. The Twelve Steps don't seem to work for me (or at least I cannot get beyond Step Two) and I am still grappling with the concept of a Higher Power to help me, but I do enjoy being in the others' company for an hour or two. It is an escape from the misery at home, a chance to share my story and a chance to meet like-minded people who do not judge or criticise.

Afterwards I went off to the hospital. The trouble I have found is that the doctors may have a conversation with Greg, ask him what is wrong and tell him what they are going to do but there is a giant problem they overlook. If the patient is an alcoholic, suffering from some degree of mental incapacity (whether it be just plain drunk at one end of the scale or dementia at the other end), how do they know they are getting the full story or even the truth? If, say, Greg decides to omit the fact that we live in a house with lots of stairs, how do they know this when thinking of sending him home? If they advise him they are going to do this or that, how do I get to find out? Greg's mind is in such a state, he cannot remember who has visited him or what they said. He gets days mixed up, he is confused by the time on the clock. Is it ten minutes to two, or ten minutes past ten? How, then, can he tell me whom he has seen and what they are going to do for him? Therefore, communication both ways, between Greg and the doctors, or between the doctors and me, was not entirely satisfactory. I had no idea what sort of doctors were seeing him or what they were planning to do. All I had been told to date was that they were putting Greg on medication to combat withdrawal from alcohol.

The hospital Greg was in is, I suppose, typical for most large inner city hospitals. Large and impersonal. The nursing staff, the domestic staff, the porters and the receptionists , mainly of Caribbean origin, seem to have a much more laid-back and relaxed approach to things. I want information. They want me to go away, so they can carry on laughing and chatting with one another. Some of the nurses go around arm in arm, like giggling schoolgirls at break-time, chatting and gossiping. If I ask a question, I am ignored or they shrug shoulders without passing a word. It is literally like trying to get blood out of a stone. I've even seen some nurses in Accident and Emergency dancing as they attend to patients. All I want to do is talk to a doctor, find out what they think is wrong with Greg's legs, find out whether they think he has some depression or dementia, get a diagnosis, a prognosis. Nobody seems to be able to give me that information.

On Tuesday he had been moved from a holding ward to another more permanent medical ward. In the transfer they had managed to lose two pairs of Greg's reading glasses (one a prescription pair), a pen of no value and a dispensing box full of all his tablets for a whole week which I had brought in at their request as Greg could not remember what he takes.. Nobody seemed too bothered to tell me where I might go looking for these missing items, if they were no longer on Greg's bedside table. Little things like this were beginning to really annoy me. On Thursday I struck gold.... there was a lovely EFFICIENT black nursing sister who seemed to know what she was doing (hurrah) and at my request she managed to spirit a doctor from the ether to come and talk to me. It turned out he was a psychiatrist and, though he could not tell me anything about Greg's legs, he was obviously more concerned about Greg's mental state and had been told by the social worker to assess Greg. I think I got through to that lovely young doctor what my concerns were and, bless him, he did approach Greg's bedside and say he would talk to him the following morning. Greg hates hospital (have I mentioned that a thousand times before?) and was again trying to tell this young doctor that perhaps he could do the assessment from home. The doctor replied that it was better to be done from hospital as things don't happen once you are home again. That reassured me but clearly agitated Greg.

Yesterday morning Greg phoned me to say he had not seen the psychiatrist after all as he had been taken down for a liver scan. He did not know when the psychiatrist would reappear. I went off to my weekly Al-anon meeting and got calming vibes and reassurance to send me on my way to the hospital. When I arrived on the ward, I was met by one of the staff whose first words to me were that Greg's pills had come up from the pharmacy and he was now ready. On Greg's bed was a huge plastic bag full of his belongings. Greg was sitting on the bed next to said plastic bag trying to phone me on his mobile phone, even though I had already reminded him that morning that I was going to my Al-anon meeting. I was somewhat stunned. "Sorry, ready for what?" I stuttered. "Do I deduce he is going home?" The woman looked a bit embarrassed and said she was sorry I did not know. Greg was muttering that he had not had a chance to tell me. I felt a surreal moment coming on. So that is how I first found out. When I regained composure, I went out of the room to speak to the woman who had broken this news. "But what about the psychiatrist, the back-up at home?" The woman replied that the psychiatrist had visited Greg but did not think Greg was showing any sign of depression or dementia, but merely the alcoholism was effecting his mental state and that would only subside if he stopped drinking. They were providing contacts for Greg to get in touch with to stop drinking (ones Greg already knows about and has not wanted to approach in the past, I might add). Furthermore Greg had refused any back-up help at home, because he said we could manage. He was very keen to get home and, as the hospital cannot force him to stay, he was free to go.

I WAS FURIOUS. How dare he say we can manage? We? Me, more like. HE will just sit on his bony backside and expect everything to be done for him. I felt like bursting into tears, dashing along the corridor, out into my car and driving off leaving him stranded there. THAT'LL SHOW HIM. AND THEM. My head was in a spin. Instead I politely completed discharge forms, wearily packed any remaining items into a bag and quietly made arrangements to meet a porter with Greg in a wheelchair at the main entrance. And I drove home with Greg asking every few minutes whether I had enough cigarettes at home, or whether we should stop on the way to get some more. I don't know how I saw the traffic lights change through my tears. By the time we got home, Greg had thoroughly managed to wind me up until I was even more furious. I felt like Mrs Incredible Hulk. I felt as I was going to burst with anger. All that kept going through my head was "we can manage" and the words the psychiatrist had uttered that once the patient goes home, the help cannot be found in retrospect... it has to be done or can be done much quicker when still in the hospital. Effectively I was on my own. I was so furious, I parked the car, got out, unpacked the things from it, disappearing through our front door and leaving him to it. He called out to me. I brought the zimmer frame round to the passenger door. "You said you can manage, then bloody well manage", I screamed at him and went back inside. I hardly recognised my cruelty, but something in me just snapped. I made no attempt to help him up or down the stairs. I was almost willing him to fall down so I could call another ambulance. Another chance to get him back to that hospital. Once settled he made himself a coffee (he could see I was not going to make it for him) and again asked about the cigarettes. I just could not bring myself to answer. After a few minutes had passed, he said in that case he would just have to get some himself. I called his bluff. I was banking on the fact that his car had not been used for over three months and that the battery would be as dead as a dodo. The next thing I knew, he was slamming the front door and feeling his way along the wall for support to the car. I rushed up to the bedroom window to watch. I waited for the choking of the engine before it spluttered and died. Instead I heard a pleasant hum and watched as the car glided backwards off the driveway. Sitting rather dwarfed and frail in the driver's seat was Greg. I rushed downstairs again and out through the front door. By that time, Greg had manoeuvred the car across the cul-de-sac but could no longer move it forward. It had died on him. I tried to push it forward but Greg said he thought the gears had gone. Now, because Greg has been driving for over 40 years and is more experienced in these things than I, I believed him. It did not occur to me to doubt his thoughts on this. So we called out the Automobile Association (ironically another AA in our life!) and frantically waited for them to turn up , all the while blocking access and egress for all our neighbours in our cul-de-sac. When the AA turned up, the car moved first time - Greg had simply not had the strength in his legs to push down the pedals hard enough. The AA man even drove it round the block before waving us a cheery goodbye. It occurred to me that if Greg had managed to drive to the local shops, he would never have been able to walk without the zimmer frame from the car to the shop to get the cigarettes and he had forgotten to take the zimmer frame with him! It is this lack of thinking that worries me. What will he do next?

It was while we were waiting for the AA that I wrote my post yesterday, so I think you might now have a better understanding about why I was so distressed!!! Again I apologise for having blown my gasket sufficiently for some of you to be very worried. I promise you I am back in fine fettle today and turning my thoughts to plans for the future!

Home again

He is home again as of 5 minutes ago and I am so blimmin choked, I could howl my eyes out. The hospital have just wiped their hands of him yet again. He can barely walk, is already bleating he wants some cigarettes and I know it won't be long before he's asking for the whisky. How can they do this to me?

Death and Life

What a busy 24 hours I've had. Yesterday I rushed down to Brighton for my friend's husband's funeral and arrived by train to discover hoards of policeman and sniffer dogs wandering around the concourse. I pondered whether they were diet police and knew I had two chocolate bars about my person, but then the taxi driver on the way to the church told me that Gordon was giving his speech within the hour and it was extra security laid on for his arrival. The funeral was the nicest I have ever been to (if you can say such a thing). There were at least a hundred and fifty people there, some having travelled for the day from as far afield as Paris and Geneva. There was a traditional service bit, a break while the immediate family departed for the crematorium for the committal) then a two-hour celebration of his life with speeches from those involved in all aspects of his life. It was very moving. It was good to see my two best friends, one being the widow, though sadly we did not have much time for a chat.

This morning I was back at the hospital, where I seem to be spending most of my time this week, to meet the social worker who sold me down the river last year. She has been brought in to discuss Greg's latest condition and what help/back-up Social Services can provide. I have told her I cannot cope any more, am at the end of my tether and really need either back-up from support workers at home, if I decide to stay and care for him, or a cast of a thousand to care for him if I decide to leave. She is looking into this for me. Don't hold your breath. Meanwhile Greg is demanding to be sent home NOW, even though he can barely walk across the room and is shaking like a jelly from withdrawal. At least he is on medication to get him off the alcohol (again), though he asked me to smuggle some in for him yesterday. My answer was unprintable.

Here we go again

Three guesses where I spent my Saturday evening? Having a romantic meal? No. Bopping away at the nightclub down the road? No. Being serenaded by Richard Gere on a gondola? No....fat chance! Sorry your three guesses are up. I spent Saturday evening in Accident and Emergency at the local hospital.

Over the last few months, Greg has been having increasing difficulty walking , his feet have puffed up to the size of party balloons over the last few weeks and despite my nagging (his words by the way - mine would be more along the lines of advising) him to go to the doctor, he has shown no sign of doing so. The circulation to his legs is damaged by smoking and the nerve supply in his legs is damaged by diabetes. More and more over the last few weeks, as I had reported, his appetite had gone altogether, his hygiene had completely gone to seed and he had not bothered to dress or do anything. He had been incontinent several times and I had had to clear up the mess.

Yesterday afternoon he tried to get up the stairs to lie down and his legs just crumpled beneath him. He had no strength in his legs whatsoever to stand or even sit on the stairs. He looked akin to a mermaid (or should that be merman?) trying to writhe up the stairs using the top half of his body but dragging the useless bottom half behind him. He barked at me to help him up the stairs, but as I tried to get him to stand, so his legs crumpled beneath him again. Then he tried to crawl on all fours but again his legs would not do the work. After several attempts over a period of half an hour, when I seemed to be getting the blame for his inability to get up the stairs, I could see we were getting nowhere and I said I was going to phone for an ambulance. He begged me not to (he hates hospitals with a passion and is too curmudgeonly to do what he is told by the nurses and doctors) but I was having none of it. So I called an ambulance and he was whisked to the nearest hospital, with me following on behind in the car. After a three-hour wait, during which Greg moaned about the long wait and complained that I had over-reacted and that he could have got up the stairs if only I had supported him a bit more, we finally saw a doctor who did all sorts of tests to evaluate his mobility and reflexes. Then she ordered some blood tests and the long and short of it was that they admitted him overnight to do some more mobility tests in the morning. My sister-in-law commented "thank goodness it wasn't last weekend when you were taking Kay up to university".

Meanwhile the blood results show that his liver values are sky-high. Surprise surprise!

Testing times

I don't mean to keep on whining, because I know everyone has their share of problems, but I'm having a tough time of things at the moment.

1. Kay is up at university and I would be quite happy to cope with the empty nest syndrome if it weren't for the fact that she is finding it hard to settle. I have received quite a few tearful phone calls from her over the last few days which in turn have unsettled me. It seems the people she is sharing a flat with are quite heavy party animals and have been out every night since they all arrived on Saturday boozing till 3 AM. Although Kay enjoys a vodka or two, she is obviously not keen to follow in her father's footsteps and cannot see the point in being completely legless or throwing up by the roadside. She prefers to pace her drinks and be relaxed and enjoy the evening. They also seem to have come with quite a few of their mates from school, whereas Kay had no choice in which university she went to (because of the competition I mentioned here) and so has not gone where any of her school friends are. She has just rang me again in tears. Last night she had not gone out with them as she needed to be in university today to meet her lecturers and tutors for the first time, and attend lectures. She therefore needed a clear head. Her flatmates came crawling home at 3am and were shouting and yelling in party-mood, which woke her and she could not get back to sleep again after that. All she keeps saying is that she feels so tired and misses home and her friends, but she does not want to seek pastoral advice from anyone at the university for fear she will look bad in her flatmates eyes. Frankly I really don't know what to do and I am really worried about her.

2. I have two very close friends from my university days and the husband of one of them has just died suddenly. He has had back pain for a few months and at first was being treated for sciatica and then a kidney infection. The pain did not go away, though, and he only found out about six weeks ago that he had spinal cancer. About a month ago, he had a quick course of radiotherapy which rendered him paralysed and he died ten days ago. It has all happened so fast, we are still reeling from the shock. I am going to his funeral next week. It is not going to be easy. He was a tall cuddly bear of a man, a gentle giant, a gentleman, a leading light in his field of expertise. It does not seem possible this could happen so quickly.

3. In an attempt to cheer myself up this morning, I went into our nearest shopping centre for a bit of retail therapy. But I felt as if I was walking in a bubble and all I could see was Kay and I walking there last week getting the last-minute bits and pieces for uni. I did not enjoy it one bit and decided to come home, quickly nipping into a supermarket on the way to grab a couple of whisky bottles for Greg. One slipped through my hand and I ended up with glass and whisky in a pool all around my feet. Fortunately the supermarket manager was extremely sweet and told me not to worry and an assistant miraculously appeared with mop and bucket and also told me not to worry. I felt like bursting into tears, because they were so nice.

4. On getting home, I discovered Greg had had an accident in the toilet and there was mess all over the toilet floor. He had of course not cleared it up and it was waiting for me to deal with. (He seems to be getting more and more incontinent at the moment, both with urine and faeces. Because he cannot walk very well, he seems to get the message too late to get to the toilet in time.) My washing machine is working overtime. I have become a carer and am no longer a wife - in all senses of the word.

Sometimes life sucks.

Empty Nest Syndrome

On Saturday I took Kay up to university.
The house is empty now - without her.
Void of her laughter, her clothes, her self.
It's horrible.

Why?

Many people ask why I have stayed so long and put up with Greg's alcoholism. Like with many things involving emotions, it is not an easy question to answer. To start with, we have been married for nearly 34 years and in addition were together five years before that, so that is a heck of a long time invested in one another. The alcoholism only started 6 years ago when Greg took early retirement because of heart disease and the diminishing ability to commute to work. The previous 28 married years had been a normal reasonably happily married relationship.

When the alcoholism started, it was uncharacteristic and I had hoped it was a minor blip which would right itself. By the time the penny dropped that there was no quick fix and this was not going to get better, the thought of leaving him was at the time out of the question. You know how it is, if you have teenage kids, you want things to be consistent for them, particularly with important exams looming on the horizon. You don't want to upset the apple cart. The problem is that the alcoholism does not make for a peaceful life anyway, so you are damned if you leave and damned if you don't. [All credit to Kay that she managed to survive the shellfire and do as marvellously in her exams as she did.]

With each detox or hospital emergency (which ultimately led to yet another detox), I hoped that this time it would work, but inevitably Greg would return to drinking again, fooling himself and me that the occasional drink would be OK. Unfortunately I was to learn that an alcoholic cannot dice with alcohol in that way. It's all or nothing. No grey area at all. One drink leads to another and another and in the end it spirals out of control again. I admit that I had high hopes just before the first detox. When that failed, my expectations became less and less with the subsequent ones. The statistics speak volumes...apparently only 1 in 10 alcoholics manage to overcome their alcoholism.

Another thing, I suppose, is that I come from a family where marriage is sacrosanct. My parents were ecstatically married for over fifty years before leukaemia tore my father from my mother. [My mother has still not got over her grief some eight years later and says goodnight to his photo on her bedside every night.] I thought I was equally blessed in my marriage as things were fine up until 6 years ago. To give up and walk out on the marriage just because of the alcoholism seemed cowardice. I suppose too, I have always liked a challenge and I thought I could beat this black shadow that had crept over our family. Unfortunately, though, it has since shown me who is boss. One thing is for sure, the whole experience has made me a stronger person than before. I have achieved things and endured things I would have thought were not humanly possible.

Early on in Greg's alcoholism, an emergency doctor once told him that if he stopped drinking abruptly, he would suffer horrendous withdrawal symptoms such as hallucinations, fits and tremors. That frightened Greg so much that he would turn to drink as soon as he woke in the morning, for fear he would start off the withdrawal process . Ironically the very thing that made Greg feel ill in the morning was the very thing he needed to feel better. He would wake retching, feeling nauseous, shaking. But after a couple of stiff drinks for breakfast, he would begin to feel better and the day would continue with bouts of sleep and renewed drinking to keep up the alcohol levels to avoid withdrawal. This deep-seated fear has now made him alcohol-dependent and his lack of willpower has meant that he is unable to reduce gradually, as the doctors all advise. I have seen this fear in him and witnessed him reduced to tears when he feels he wants to stop but knows he just dare not. I have oscillated between feeling sorry for him, because he was not always like this, and being extremely angry about what he has put the whole family through.

There comes a point in this cycle between the detoxes, when Greg is no longer able to buy his own supplies. This is at the point when he is usually drinking a full bottle a day, his health has deteriorated and he is not eating at all because the alcohol suppresses the appetite. He becomes physically weak and mentally incapable. I have therefore been the one to buy his whisky supplies when it gets to that stage where he can no longer get out on his own. The one alternative is that he goes without alcohol (which, as I have mentioned above, he cannot for the reasons of withdrawal) or the other alternative is that he drives to get it himself. I would rather have it on my conscience that I am enabling him to drink by buying the stuff for him than risk him running someone over with his car if he gets it himself. Of course I would rather not have either option, but the fear he has (and, if I am honest, I have too) of the withdrawal symptoms is too strong a threat to ignore. We are both caught up in this addiction for different reasons. Him because he needs that alcohol in his system and me because I know if he doesn't get it, it will tear him apart. I am however the only one between us who seems to understand that it will eventually kill him. He seems to think he can outwit it. I am resigned to the fact that he will never manage it. His health has suffered too much already and each time he detoxes he does not bounce back so easily and his liver and brain suffer that little bit more. I know it is killing him. Also I am aware that, if I should decide to leave him, he would not be able to cope and would inevitably be alone in an emergency and possibly die alone. Not exactly a nice thought for any of us to contemplate, whether we are alcoholics or not. Strange as it may seem, I certainly still care enough to feel guilty about this.

Shortly Kay is about to embark on a new chapter in her life and will be leaving home for exciting adventures at university. I then have some tough decisions to make.

Analysis of the situation so far

Here are some key facts about Greg's current situation:

Health - he has heart disease, diabetes, circulatory problems in legs and feet, liver damage, slight brain damage; he forgets to take medication (or refuses to take it when I provide it), drinks one 70cl bottle of whisky per day, smokes 30-40 cigarettes daily, eats almost nothing (has no appetite). Because of the diabetes/smoking, his circulation is poor, so his feet are purple, puffy and covered in sores.

Money spent on alcohol/cigarettes - too much to mention. Approximately £140 per week.

Hygiene - Greg does not wash himself, clean his teeth or change his clothes, in fact he has taken lately to not even bothering to dress and bums about in his dirty dressing gown all day and all night. He stinks. Any attempts on my part to get him to wash or change clothing (so I can actually get it into a washing machine or burn it) constitutes nagging.

Interests (in no particular order) - whisky, talking about anything that happened 10-40 years ago, watching History channel on TV, dozing on a dining chair.

Irritants - anyone who interrupts his monologues, anyone who dares to say anything over the television programmes he watches ( he watches from 7am till 2 am the next morning!!)

Average number of times he has been out of the house in months - nil

Last time he went for a walk anywhere - 3 months ago

Age - actual age 60, looks 80, physical ability of a 120-year-old

He is a living nightmare.

Google Library picture

Burning issue

Because of the heavy alcohol dependency combined with the diabetes, Greg spends a lot of his time nodding off to sleep at various times of the day. I will often come into our kitchen/diner, where he sits all day watching TV, and find him fast asleep on a dining chair with his chin on his chest. If I leave him like this, he complains, once he wakes up, that I should not have left him like that and that I should always attempt to wake him, as otherwise he will not sleep at night. As it is, he does not go to bed much before 2 am. The trouble is, if I DO wake him, he is always irritable and shouts at me. If it is much later in the day, he also talks a lot of gobbledegook.

The other day, when I found him asleep in front of the TV, I tried to wake him and he started talking about daughters in the fridge. I asked him to explain that again and he got very annoyed, as if I should have understood the first time round. He was slurring his words, then said that he meant *details* in the fridge. What? He explained again, only more annoyed this time...the details of addresses in mobile phones should be defrosted and put in the fridge. What???? He was really shouting at me by now that I was failing to listen properly and understand him. I gave up at that point and said I was going to bed. But my heart was in my boots. I am always afraid when he is in that mental state that he might fall asleep with a cigarette still alight. It does not fill me with confidence when I turn off my bedside lamp and try to sleep.