AUGUST - A DIFFERENT KIND OF LOCKDOWN

It has been incredibly hot here in the middle of France for most of July and August.

We have just had our fifth heatwave of the summer.

When the forecast says it's going to be 37°C it often turns out to be 39° or 40°.

That's very hard to live with.

We have learned to adjust.

Up early to get dog walking and other jobs done then stay indoors in the afternoon.

A friend described it as a different kind of lockdown.

Unlike 2020 we have been able to get out and about with a bit of careful planning.

The Paulmy brocante was early in the month.  It was buzzing.

I did buy a few things........more about them another time.

August is a time when a lot goes on and we have to find crafty ways of enjoying it in spite of the  baking hot weather.

At the beginning of the month we lashed out on a couple of extra outdoor tables so we could entertain a good number of our friends all at once, especially as we had been out of action for so long and me literally out of the country for over a month.  A lot of our friends are part timers - people who have second homes here and are only around for a few months of the year.  We didn't want to miss them.

It all began when a friend gave me a stack of matching plates that she no longer wanted.  There were twelve each of dinner plates and side plates.  I also spotted outdoor table cloths at less than half price (5€ each) in Centrakor.  Perfect for a large group.

We invited the crowd over one not so roastingly hot day.  Apéros were possible under the shade of our lime tree before moving over to the table for lunch.  The French for lime tree  or linden tree is tilleul.

Later that evening we went over to the next village, Barrou, for a very special concert.

Local singer/songwriter and musician Polo with his children and friends performed French and English songs under the shade of the linden trees at the restaurant called "Les Tilleuls".

It was a truly magical evening, rounding off a wonderful day.

Nick has managed to play golf a few times by going early in the morning.

That means I'm on dog walking that day, a joy in the cool of the morning at the lake at La Çelle-Guenand.

12th August was a very special day.

Never mind it being the "glorious twelfth", the start of the grouse shooting season, it was Eclipse Day.

We had invited a few friends round for dinner and a bit of an eclipse party.

It was so hot that we decided to eat indoors.

It was a cold menu, gazpacho soup, quiche, salads and raspberry trifle.

Armed with a few pairs of special eclipse glasses and a couple of colanders we braved the tremendous heat and stepped outside to enjoy the view.

We had set up an "observatory" for six people in the garden in the ideal spot to view the spectacle at the right moment.

To our complete amazement the colander trick worked.

To our disappointment at the critical moment the sun went behind not just the moon but a very inconvenient tree.

So we retired indoors to the cool of the house to continue with our dinner.

Two days later we were out again for a "moules et frites" evening.

We have been to a few of these over the years.

Trestle tables are set up outdoors to serves moules and chips to a large number of people.

On this occasion the music was provided by the rock band "Hot Doctors".

A very apt name considering the weather!

The moules were great, the music brilliant.

The dessert was delicious.  Apple tart.

And so the fun continues.

At the weekend we went to Montrésor for an art festival.

In theory the weather was cooling down a bit.

In reality, down by the river in all those little tents it was baking hot yet again.

Our pets are coping with the heat in their own way.

Yvonne has barely been into the house for weeks, preferring to find her own cool spots around the garden.

I gave Hugo a shower to fluff up his fur a bit and make him feel better.

He wasn't especially dirty but very gritty and full of seeds.

He's getting a haircut later today.

With Nick off to the golf course early yesterday morning I took Hugo to La Çelle-Guenand for his walk.

We were disappointed.  The gypsies had arrived en masse and taken up residence around the lake.

So we went a little further to the plan d'eau at Le Petit-Pressigny.

The hazy sunshine was much cooler and more comfortable, if a little weird.

It has been a difficult summer but, as my mum used to say,

"where there's a will, there's a way".

We have not missed out on much, in spite of the ridiculous heat.

DAD'S STORY

Dad in his favourite spot in his favourite pub, October 2017.

Just before his 89th birthday.

My previous post about Dad produced some interest and comments, some from people struggling with the same broken Social Care System, some from people who had no idea that things are how they are.  I have therefore republished an old post and added his story.  It makes harrowing reading and highlights how bad the situation is.  The story is by no means complete, much more along the same lines happened but there is enough to make my point.   Read here if you are interested.

A BIRTHDAY AND A NICE LUNCH

It was Hugo's birthday last week.

He is nine years old and still such a handsome boy.

This time last year there were four places to eat in the village.  

Chez Grandma closed at the end of last year.  The owners are hoping to sell it.

La Cabane was a short lived venture.

It was a bar come tapas style restaurant.  They held music evenings and served good food.

They closed last autumn when the owners moved on to other things.

Rumour has it that it has been sold to someone opening some kind of tearoom but there is no sign of any activity yet.

Brody's was immensely successful restaurant.

It closed in mid June and the new owners plan to re-open in September, I believe.

And so now we have just one place to eat in the village.  When we first came here it was called the Hotel Savoie-Villars.  We stayed there for a few nights when we very first moved here and have eaten there frequently over the years.  It has been through several owners with different styles and now it is called L'Auberge.

The owners post a lunchtime menu which changes every day and I check their Facebook page every so often to see if it's something we could fancy.  The evening menu is a-la-carte and sometimes a little too out of the ordinary for our taste but their lunchtime menus are excellent.  Hence we found ourselves eating there one day last week. 

Because they are now the only act in town, the tourist season in full swing and the weather good, they were very busy.  We made a last minute decision to go for lunch and arrived to find it already buzzing.  The waiter/co owner asked if we had reserved and when we said no he sucked in his cheeks, ummed and ahhed and found us a table in the courtyard.  He said we would have a bit of a wait.

He was true to his word and we waited twenty minutes to have our order taken but we were in no rush.  He offered us extra alternatives to the set menu du jour for starter and dessert.

My starter was a delicious gazpacho chilled soup served with anchovies.

Nick had tarama on toasts with a cabbage slaw.

We both had the main course of poached chicken in a curry sauce.

For dessert Nick had apricots roasted with honey and a boule of pistachio ice cream.

My dessert was a pear and apricot clafoutis with ice cream.

 All followed by a delicious espresso coffee.

Total bill for lunch including aperitifs and wine, 65€.

FOUR YEARS ON

Two recent events have reminded me of the awful time in 2022 leading up to my father's death.  One is the death of our friend and neighbour in the UK and the other is this post from the other day.

Dad and his lady friend Sybil came to stay with us in France in 2018.

He had been a widower for sixteen years.

My father was not an easy man to help.  He resisted and resented many of the things we did for him and when it was clear to his close family and friends that dementia and not forgetfulness or just being awkward was the cause we embarked upon the process of obtaining a diagnosis.  That process takes six months (or at least it did then) and before the final assessment he was dead.

With his granddaughter Joanna who he adored, Christmas 2018. 

In February 2020 he announced, to our huge relief, that he would like to leave his home and go into "sheltered housing".  Because of Covid this was not achieved until October that year, after eight months of battling with systems and authorities and getting nowhere, it was the intervention of our then Conservative MP that got him the apartment in the end, the only good thing he did.  I shall be forever grateful for that.

His 90th birthday, November 2018.

Within a year my father was needing more help and that's when the real problems started.  The endless phone calls to social workers, carers, doctors, district nurses, incontinence nurses, and others.  The service they provided was slow, disjointed, cursory, or non existent.  Misinformation or lack of information was a huge problem.  The only people who really cared about him and for him were the young woman we hired as a cleaner and the pharmacy staff.  All the others had little empathy for him or the family desperately trying to get help for him.  The system is most definitely broken.

New Year, January 2019.

During the worst time of it I wrote a blog called "The Accidental Carer" where I documented the insanity of it all.  It saved my sanity.  A few of you may have read some of it.  I have since deleted it as I couldn't bear to read it after his death.

Moving day, October 2020.

September 2021.

His ultimate demise came at the end of a three week stay in our local hospital, a stay that would have been totally unnecessary if the carers and staff at his facility had been doing their jobs properly.  He was not ill when he was admitted, he just needed proper care that would allow him to live his remaining months in comfort and dignity.  The carers had failed him so they passed the buck and sent for an ambulance.  When he was admitted he could walk and talk.  He was kept in hospital so they could address his pressure sores and that he was seriously underweight.  They did neither.   He was not fed or got out of bed and when they finally decided there was nothing more they could do for him and he needed a place in a care home there were none available.  By the time he was discharged he was emaciated, filthy, totally unable to walk and most of his belongings including the holdall of clean clothes, toiletries and electric shaver had all disappeared.  Crucially, they had also lost his dental plate a few days before.  Without that he couldn’t speak properly or express his wishes, eat, or drink from a cup, spout or straw.  He had been moved from one ward to another five times, often late at night, for no benefit to him, so that's probably how his things went missing.  He was trundled to each new place, where none of the nurses knew him, in the same bed, and his belongings were left behind. 

I can just imagine them saying "Have you got everything, Mr Marsden?" as they whisked him away  and, if he was awake, he would have said yes.  Because of his dementia he wouldn't have a clue.  Because there was no formal diagnosis of dementia they would have taken him at his word because, as one of the nurses said, although we had POA, he was deemed to have capacity because dementia was not on his file.  All our words fell on deaf ears.

The hospital social worker referred to him as a “bed blocker”.  

The day of his discharge from hospital, June 2022.

He lasted a week in the care home.  

I always thought we could protect my dad and us from the awful situations that we knew other people had experienced because of the state of Social Care in the UK but I was wrong.  I thought that because we were intelligent, articulate and capable people we could sort things out but the system conspired against us.  Although we had power of attorney for everything we were constantly kept out of the loop because of the lack of the diagnosis of dementia.  We were frustrated and ignored over and over again.

Our then Conservative MP's response to all of the issues I raised with him was one of blame.  He needed to know if I wanted to make a complaint against the hospital, the care company and the housing organisation.  I didn't want to make any complaints, we were all exhausted by the people and processes that failed my dad.  What I really wanted was change.  The MP paid lip service to the government's supposed plans for Social Care but I know from the two recent events mentioned in my first sentence that little or nothing has changed in the last four years.  

In fact, Reform controlled Derbyshire County Council have plans to close and empty five dementia day centres and eight care homes this year.  Some of this has already happened.  

So, good on our new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, for not only recognising that the way in which we care for our elderly people in the UK is seriously broken but also sounding like he cares about it.  Not like the previous government under whose watch Social Care declined to the state it is in today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am in the process of rewriting an old blog post giving Dad's story.  It makes uncomfortable writing and reading.  I will publish a link to it when it's finished.  The point of it is to highlight some of the awful things that happened during his last months that should never happen to anyone.