Wednesday 16 October 2013

Brave New World!

I've had to cut back on help as I have to buy it all in. Of course I couldn't do it overnight as by law I am required to give notice. But at least I have not had to pay any outside help for the past 3 weeks.
It is a relief in some ways as it is one bill I will not have to worry about anymore. On the other hand, the lack of help has had a rather inevitable consequence.

I can't do everything that needs doing for myself. So I've started the 'avoid making a mess' strategy. I no longer sit in the front room. If I stick to only using my bedroom I won't have to worry about cleaning the front room. Okay ... there's the dust and things but if I don't use the room, I won't see it ... so that's okay.

I've also figured out that if I make a flask of coffee, it can last me all day and I can drink straight from the flask so that saves on the time I have to spend in the kitchen; as well as on the dirty dishes ;-) So now the new regime is:

I pick a time when I get up. I wake up a few times during the night due to pain but I don't get up till I see daylight. If the pain level is high, I just sit on my bed till I can stand. I go to the kitchen, feed the cat and make some toast while the kettle is boiling.

I generally have to give up here and go back to bed for a while.

I go back to the kitchen and hopefully the kettle, which has cooled down by now, is not so cool that it will take too long to boil. I grab my cold toast, poor some boiled water in the flask and rinse it out at the same time as I rinse out the saucepan from last night. Measure few spoons of instant coffee into the flask.

I have to go back to bed for a while because of the pain levels.

Generally by about 11am I will have managed to make a flask of coffee and brought it back to my bedroom to have my first hot drink of the day. I don't mind telling you that by now I am gasping for a hot drink. But at least I know I will have a hot(ish) drink till I give up on the day later on.

The rest of the day is spent keeping on eye on Freecycle (I am a moderator on our local site), sorting out bits and pieces, knitting and just waiting for the day to end. Generally around 5:30-6pm I head for the kitchen again. Luckily I have an electric tin-opener so I open a tin of soup. I have unearthed my hotplate and it has a timer, so the saucepan goes on there with the contents of the soup tin.

Pain levels send me back to bed.

So far I've managed to avoid having a bowl of hot soup. But at least I know it has warmed through thoroughly at least once before I get around to eating it. I've also discovered that eating it straight from the saucepan keeps the dirty crockery down.

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