Not All Doom And Gloom

L cleans a lot of brown gunge out of the oven, whose origin we cannot quite divine. She studies the instructions on a container of oven cleaning product, which recommend working in a well-ventilated room. She says she won't do it now. It is after all after nine on a Bank Holiday Monday night. I say this is not the time for meaningful oven cleaning. We agree there is to be only meaningless cleaning for now, and laugh.

We also laughed when watching an episode of Miranda on the i-Player. Slapstick can still be funny! And big woman humour done by a big woman...

A has a new mobile phone - a cheap temporary one bought for him by a true friend, since his has gone missing (temporarily we hope) in the move from one hospital to another. We text and talk, and this is good, as the patients' phone in the main sitting area of the ward is far too public. He asks about our garden, and I tell him we have lots of courgettes growing. I also tell him we have been to see Arrietty, the latest production from Studio Ghibli and that it is good but not as good as Spirited Away which we both loved. He says he wants to go to the cinema himself, and I tell him that soon he will, though at the moment the poor boy can't even get outside for a cigarette. He is thinking of his birthday too, which is next weekend. We are all thinking of that.

Kaleidoscope

Late summer, and all the vegetables so plentiful and delicious - our own potatoes, beetroot, chard, salad leaves, radishes and courgettes, and from our lovely local organic veg box peas, beans, lettuce, carrots, onions and purple kale, as well as delicious silken plums I made into a crumble last night.

A has suffered a setback and is back on antipsychotic medication. Meanwhile, we are all supporting him to start a masters degree this autumn if he is able. Something to aim for. The whole situation is like an ever-changing kaleidoscope image - recognizable pieces again and again in new arrangements. We struggle to know what to do to help. We struggle with our own feelings of desperation. Longing, as my brother said to me last night, for this all just to stop now. To see A well and growing. To be able to stop worrying about him, to stop wondering what we could have done differently at every stage.

Frankly I worry for my own stability. Weeding the allotment today was grounding, and we have a dear old friend staying with us, one who has experience of mental illness in the family, and who is wise and calm. But I feel wretched somewhere deep inside where nothing reaches, and my concentration is not great. This level of disturbance in the family disturbs everyone deeply, and makes normal functioning very very hard, including clear thinking and decision-making about the situation itself, which is why friends are so helpful, especially when they have experience to share.

Bits And Bats

Carrot and coconut cake - the old Neals Yard Bakery recipe - to think I used to make 8 of these at a time in a giant mixer. It's still gorgeous - sticky and chewy and cinnamony and not overly sweet.

A shiny round waterproof combination padlock for the new log store, has a dial like a safe, reminds me of old movies. The new log store is half full of logs. The new woodburning stove (or multifuel stove to be entirely accurate) is looking elegantly at home, and as if it had always been in the broad inglenook fireplace in our kitchen-dining-living room. So far we have had one of the recommended 'small' fires you light to burn off toxic fumes from the paint. One reason to look forward to the colder weather...

There is, quite unmistakably, a hint of autumn in the air. The sun is at times warm, but there's a fresh coolness to the air which does not speak of summer, but of what is to come.

I resolve not to drink tonight, then E phones to say she and A are back in town after a couple of months, and would we like to join them at the Hare and Hounds tonight. What's a girl to do? Drinking J2O with E and A doesn't quite cut it.

Money worries compound nephew worries, and threaten to bring me to my knees under their dull weight, pressing down on my head. I resolve to put my energy into generating more work not more worry. I must pay my professional indemnity insurance premium, and resign myself to the overdraft. My new job will probably be starting the week after next.

Gouge

I have somehow managed to gouge a chunk out of my finger, which is hampered now as I type by a large plaster which spans the knuckle joint. I think I gouged it somehow on the handle of the toilet door, when I visited a 20p loo in town, after buying haddock, chorley cakes and kalamata olives from the market, and on my way back to the allotment realised I would enjoy my tea (in flask) and chorley cake much more if I took advantage of the (overpriced) facilities I passed en route. It cost me not only 20p but a piece of my finger to boot...

Dear A is still in hospital, or rather in a different hospital in a different town (a sudden and unsettling move necessitated by 'bed management' issues). He has what you might call clear spells and cloudy spells. He wants to go home. Who could blame him. An acute psych ward is no-one's choice of billet. On Monday, after being transported late the previous evening to this unfamiliar environment, he spent the day walking around with his backpack on, approaching the door whenever anyone came in or went out. He borrowed my pen to write me a note saying

Dear P, this is a hospital. Let's leave, A.

So many moments to break your heart. I am trying to find the bigger picture, the longer view. If I don't I am going to burn out fast.

A Nice Surprise

The rainclouds sit like steam over the tops, beneath them green, the fields, the darker trees. Across the clouds stretch the electricity wires, five, radiating out from their tall pole to our row of houses.

Stillness, coolness, my feet in socks. No alcohol tonight for the first time in many a day, and I feel a little gain in strength from the intention and its fulfillment.

My brother has been visiting my nephew, his son today, will stay in a hotel tonight, and I imagine him lonely in the city I am coming to know rather well, looking for a place to eat. I wait for his reply to my text. I think of our boy in his temporary home, with its hard wood floors and locked doors, in the muddle his life for now has become, the muddle that starts to clear, then descends again like the rainclouds over the tops, obscuring the view.

Being at home for a few days, I feel the ground pushing up against my feet again, my rattling thoughts begin to settle. Yes, I buy chocolate now and then, succumb to Galaxy cake bars, a sucker for checkout queue temptation in the Co-op, and yes, my alcohol intake is way beyond recommended levels these last few weeks (if not today), but I am calming down a little, the knot in me unclenching just a little, the fear easing some. I try to remember wholesome ways to 'de-stress'. Need to go and look at something lovely, listen to music, lie on the floor, take long candlelit baths, have fun (remember fun?) Something in me rebels then says how can I have fun when he is in that place day after long day? but I know that getting depressed, morose, heavy is not going to help him. The question also of how to take some fun to him. He needs music, I must ask if there are restrictions on i-Pods. There are restrictions on most things. I don't want to get him one and load it with music (his having gone missing) only to find he can't listen to it. My brother just texted he is surprisingly well this evening - A nice surprise.

August

This is not helping

Spade

My nephew is on a low secure psychiatric ward, recovering from a drug-induced psychosis. I have been cagey of saying this but, you know, there is a whole history of secrecy around mental illness which has placed its heavy burden on enough people already. Still does in some circles. It was not that which held me gagged, but the feeling of intense concern for his privacy. Of which I continue to be mindful. My need is to say that this is one of the hardest things I've experienced. His fragility, his powerlessness, his confusion, the distance, the mental health system, the uncertainty of the prognosis, the dubious merits of psychiatric medication. My deep bond with him from babyhood. His mother's early death.

I have never felt so parental, though I've always felt him to be the nearest I have to a child of my own. When someone you love becomes unable to take responsibility for himself, the intense way in which one suddenly feels responsible to them, even for them, is a thing my heart had no preparation for.

I head south again on Friday or Saturday, and hope to be able to stay in his flat, which will make things much easier on all fronts than having to stay at the Travelodge... All I want is to be able to visit him every day. For a few days at a time I shall be able to do so.