Family Matters

[Cathy]

Stanley, you know all about ladies knickers, you educated us all a few years ago when Peek A Boo was a topic and you told us how you used to buy your wife's undergarments. Have you forgotten, hehe.

[Marilyn]

I think the magic knickers are supposed to work like the old fashioned elasticated corsets to hold the lumps and bumps Eileen

Bridget Jones' don't hide lumps an bumps. They are just generous 'tummy warmers'...

[PanBiker]

Closely related to the "Harvest Festivals" but made of slightly sterner stuff. In my opinion only the French know how to make a proper pair of ladies knickers!

[Tizer]

Are they not also known as Magic Knickers.

I thought that was the name of a famous baseball player or jazz musician!

[Stanley]

You lot are weird! I knew I'd regret it. From the information I have gathered I think they are what I used to describe as 'Industrial Quality'.
You may be right Ian. Certainly the most expansive and nicest I ever bought were made in France and were very plain highest quality white cotton. The lady loved 'em.
Saddest sight I ever saw was a pair of knickers with two hole worn in them after a long ride on horseback. Not mine......

[LizG]

I don't log in for a couple of days and look what I miss; a whole lot of chat about undies!! A couple of posts made me laugh out loud.

[Stanley]

An old and much loved thread Liz. My education started when I was marries to a woman who wouldn't spend money on her own clothes, only the kid's. I had to become a habitué of knicker emporiums and never regretted it. A lady in one of them once told me that she loved serving me because I was one of the few men she had ever met who understood ladies underwear. I once bet Mary that I could get the lady in a Bradford shop to model some I was interested in. I won the bet..... Too may men associate lingerie with sex, the ladies I dealt with hated that. My theory was that it is about self-expression and works whether it is visible or not.

[EileenDavid]

Closely related to the "Harvest Festivals" but made of slightly sterner stuff. In my opinion only the French know how to make a proper pair of ladies knickers!

Ian,

It's a fallacy, I used to love the old French Knickers, in fact still have a couple of pairs but haven't seen any for a long time neither in England or France, well not in Brittany anyway.

Stanley are we getting on to Conor's picture of knickers again? Eileen

[PanBiker]

Not so Eileen, plenty of examples around if you make a point of dressing 30's and 40's style! A minimum eight point suspender belt also required for the silk stockings to go with them.

[Stanley]

Conor's pics, though not of French Knickers (I refer to the style and not the country of manufacture) are a constant delight in my kitchen. There used to be a very good manufacturer of lingery in Glossop but I can't remember the name....

[PanBiker]

Climbed Penyghent today in the glorious sunshine and after a bit of light lunch and liquid by the trig we scattered some of Dan's ashes on the top of the hill overlooking the other two Yorkshire peaks, upper dales and the Lakeland fells beyond. I carried him part way up there just less than 30 years ago when we coaxed him up to the top the first time when he was just short of four years old. Dan was always an "inquisitive stick man" whenever we went out walking. Not a natural mountain goat like his older sister. He came round to enjoying walking though and over the years put in lots of miles which instilled him with a love of the outdoors. He's about a bit now, down at Ghyll with a stone, on his granddad Toms grave, Stratford and now the summit of Penyghent. One more to go back at Ghyll with my mum and dad sometime soon.

[Stanley]

I put me dad's in the Macquarie River at Dubbo so he's fairly well distributed.....

[Tizer]

Phone call early this morning from Mrs Tiz's sister to say their father is back in hospital, thought to have had a stroke. He pressed the emergency button that he carries and the police turned up - six of them in total! They decided he must have had a stroke so got him taken to Charing Cross hospital because "it's got a good reputation for dealing with strokes". Sister had to go to the house - over an hour's drive in the rush hour - because the police wouldn't leave Mum alone, and then across London to the hospital.

The police were right to take no risks and send him in for treatment but we think he probably hasn't had a stroke but is suffering from the confusion that comes with his Parkinson's disease and the associated drugs. He often falls down and can't get up, so probably pressed the button and was found lying on the floor and in a confsued mental state. Anyone unfamiliar with him would think it was a stroke. Mum probably couldn't explain - she is very difficult to understand for much of the time now. Dad has a lot of tablets to take and gets confused by them even though they are now dispensed in a special box with cavities enclosing the right tablets for each time of day. If two cavities have different tablets in them he thinks the pharmacist has done it wrong and tries to correct it by moving tablets to or from other cavities. Another possible contributor to his confused state is the extreme heat, especially during the night. They fitted air conditioners in the house but the power had been switched off by an electrician who came to repair a light fitting that was dangerous.

[Stanley]

I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again. You make me realise how lucky I am and what a lottery life is! Hope it all turns out OK.....

[EileenDavid]

Hope he's bettersoon Tiz, Eileen

[Wendyf]

The problems with you have with your dad and inlaws put my troubles in perspective Tiz! What a shame we can't have a OGFB care home where all our elderly rels could be cared for in safety and comfort! Perhaps Ian can find an add-on for the new site.....
I think the heat is getting to me

[Nolic]

Cath's mum is now in a dual registered nursing/care home. Double room waiting for dad to be discharged from hospital.....though I think he is deteriorating and the stroke has left him very confused.
It is very handy having contacts in the business as I think we have turned up trumps with the home. I persuaded Cath to stay at home last evening and I went to visit her mum.
I must have had a premonition as at first Pam was very angry saying that we have dumped her there and she wants to go home and why is Bernard in a different home. Explanations repeated numerous times in the following half hour all to no avail. Got her a drink and sat outside in the shade with another old lady who was physically very frail. She and Pam had a sort of conversation around how nice it was in the home and Pam saying how much she liked it there!
Cath finishes early today and is going to the hospital to try to get some sort of prognosis for her dad and how soon(?) he is likely to be able to join mum. Nolic

[Tizer]

Thanks all for your kind thoughts. One day, Wendy, we might have the sort of elders' communities that are being developed in the US and the Netherlands, with the physically able doing practical jobs for others, and the mentally able doing the thinking for who are too confused.

You're doing the right thing for Cath's parents, Nolic. It's what we think would be best for Mrs Tiz's parents but so far they've refused - events will take over at some point but by then it will be harder for them to adapt and cope with the move. My dad's GP (who specialises in the elderly) and the local vicar both said try to move him into some kind of care home as early as possible and we can now see how important it was for him to be there while he can still get to know people and the surroundings and benefit from all of that.

Your experience with Pam and her friend is familiar. When my dad moved into the Extra Care Flat there wasn't an oven in the kitchen and he demanded that one was installed, even though the kitchen units would have had to be butchered to make a space. We did our best to convince him that it was unnecessary as he would have hot meals in the restaurant at lunchtime (paid for in his rent) and he could use a microwave oven for anything else. He wouldn't accept it and every time we visited he raised the issue again - "I need an oven, when am I going to get it?". After some weeks he made friends with the man across the corridor, got invited into the flat, found the man didn't have an oven and...next time we visited he told us "I don't need an oven!" He also admits now that he likes it there and it's better than living on his own, although he had been very resistant before the move. Unfortunately, the way the news media have presented the stories about `bad' care homes has given lots of folk the impression that it's the only kind out there. I'm now convinced that in the future we'll never be able to afford to care for people in their own homes and we'll be forced to to put more effort into developing communal care home systems.

[Nolic]

Great news. After some strong words about wasting NHS resources when there is a bed for Bernard in a nursing home we've moved from " There's nothing we can do to speed up the process " to a phone call 30 minutes ago to say that he can move to the home on Monday and they' will finalise the assessment when he's there. Pam will be pleased and so is Cath - its like a massive weight has been lifted from her shoulders. At least her mum and dad will be together and can enjoy getting on each others nerves!!! Nolic

[Wendyf]

Sounds as if things are going in the right direction Colin, it must be a big relief for you all.

[Nolic]

Thanks Wendy. Pam was in good spirits last evening even before being told that Bernard would be joining her on Monday. She had been to a coffee morning and for a walk in Colne and remembered the walk. Manager confirmed that she is much better and she has started flirting with him!!!!
Cath certainly much more relaxed last night and hopefully she will get the benefit of a lie in this morning with nothing needing to be done until she takes her mum to see Bernard this afternoon. Nolic

[Stanley]

It sounds to me as though Comrade Nolic has a new vocation opening up for him, 'care home arbitrator' or something similar!
On another level, what a caring and sensible exchange of views, a credit to all of you and an example that at least one small community, 'Family Matters', is functioning well. A splendid example for many other areas of life.....

[Tizer]

It looks like we were right about Mrs Tiz's dad, the hospital can't find any evidence of a stroke and it turns out that he has been confusing his Parkinson's tablets and taking too many, then runs out and has nothing until he gets a fresh supply. The fail-safe dispensing gadget is not fail-safe in the hands of a confused Parkinson's man. His carers aren't allowed to give him his medicines because they are `not professionally qualified to do it'. Yet it's they who now tell us that he's been taking the wrong amounts and running out of supply, so it seems they've observed the problem but done nothing about it.

If I seem to be forever relating stories like the above it's not because I want to grumble here but rather that I hope our experiences might help others avoid the problems, or at least console them with the thought that they are not alone if they do get into the same predicaments!

[Stanley]

"If I seem to be forever relating stories like the above it's not because I want to grumble here but rather that I hope our experiences might help others avoid the problems, or at least console them with the thought that they are not alone if they do get into the same predicaments!"

Exactly! I shouldn't worry about anyone thinking you are a whinger.

[Tizer]

Mrs Tiz's dad should be sent home from hospital today. They've diagnosed him as having vascular dementia which is in addition to his Parkinson's and long-term heart trouble. I had to look up vascular dementia and, for anyone else who needs to know, here's the details on the Alzheimer's society web site:
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scri ... mentID=161
He has episodes of confusion and is going to need carers to administer his medication which apparently will now include something for the dementia - he'll need a big cupboard to keep all the different boxes of tablets! The problem at the moment is finding carers to start as soon as possible, it usually takes several days at the best.