Our dearest Dad has gone from our lives

On Monday my Dad decided he did not want any more treatment and wanted to come home, he was deteriorating and we agreed with his wishes as did the very kind, doctors. He came home and my Mam, myself, our family, some very kind carers and district nurses all made his last few days as comfortable as possible. He passed away with us sat with him talking about old times on Saturday evening at 7.15pm. Our hearts are broken and will always have a gap even when they have healed a little. He was the kindest, caring, generous Dad my brother Peter and I could ever have had as well as a loving husband for my Mam.

A friend of Mam's said that she thought it was a privelege we had had to nurse him through his last days with us all around him and do you know she is right.

Goodbye Dad we will always love you

PS we could not have done this without the help of the excellent NHS employees around us, they were magnificent and so were the carers, I felt very fortunate to have a system that just kicked in straight away to provide him with the care he needed.

Update on life!

Hi since the last blog my Dad caught the 'C Difficile' infection and had to return to James Cook and be barrier nursed (and us). He has gone back such a long way and now he has had to start getitng better again, it took them a week to decide he had the infection and in the meantime he was a very weak man of 84 getting up sometimes every 10 mins to go to the loo, with a catheter in and hardly able get up. We were happy when they finally moved him back to James Cook. He was a lot better today, we asked them to give him an anti depressant to help raise his spirits and hopefully that will kick in soon as he has some bad days. We have a stair lift in place at Dads and a bath thing(!) and Mam will hopefully get some help with Dad when he gets home.

IN the meantime between hospital visits! we have had a stand at the New College Durham Vintage and Retro Fair which we did well at again. We have decided to try our luck at Hexham and I am currently making pictures and cushions out of old fabric. We have also been to the auction and bought a few bits to piant like mirrors for Hexham as apparently visitors there like painted furniture.

I also bought at the auction a huge load of boxes of buttons! Where do I start there are thousands of them in boxes, huge, tiny, coloured, cream, grey, horn, you name it we have them. I am thinking of putting them on ebay in lots of say 10, any ideas??

In the two boxes of linen and china were some wonderful pieces including several pairs of beautiful ladies evening gloves and a pair of the finest kid leather gloves I have ever seen.

Better go to bed now long day aheas tomorrow at work and the 20th October draws nearer as I am a public sector worker and Wednesday is the day we know a little more about our future. There have been plans made all over the Council for redundancies behind closed doors and I guess they will surface in the next few weeks.