Moleskins, Aged care and Alzheimer.

It had to happen. A small tear in my moleskin trousers rapidly spread into a big one. From below the knee up to my thighs. This pair of moleskins lasted for more than twenty years. Helvi remembers buying them from the RM Williams store in Bowral in 1995. It was the year before we moved to the farm. The Australian RM Williams moleskins are the quintessential for farmwear. They are snake proof, even shark-proof. I never heard a shark taking someone wearing those moleskins. They are warm in winter and once worn- in, very comfortable during summer. The moleskin, like their boots, are not cheap but they last. I am still wearing the boots. I did send them away to their factory in Adelaide to get the bottom part renewed.

I promptly bought another identical pair of moleskins yesterday. Helvi said; ‘they will see you out!’ It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption! I combined the buying of the moleskins with an appointment with the audiologist and a thorough hearing test. I have become deaf. The latest movie we saw ‘The ladies in Black’ was beyond my hearing and most of it had to be guessed with the missing bits filled in by Helvi. Within my indoor-bowling groups I am not following conversation anymore. I am not too bothered by that with most of conversation by talk of football and Roosters. When they laugh so do I. I thought Rooster was a male chicken and as I was feeding the chickens next door tried to join in and enter the talk. It turned out a Rooster is a football club. I told the audiologist I don’t mind spending big money if it eases the situation when with Helvi. It is a bummer for her to keep repeating herself.  She doesn’t deserve that. As you can see, ageing has its problems.

We watched the second episode of the ABC’s ‘Aged- Care’.  One reason for feeling a bit sombre today. Dear, oh dear!  More bashings of the elderly and frail, all caught on cameras. It turns out that installing cameras in aged care facilities is a legal minefield.  The main problem is lack of qualified staff and understaffing. Even so, where is the empathy and understanding by our health minister who seemed to want to make light of it. Is this why we also don’t really mind the keeping in detention of over a hundred children, now in its fifth year on Nauru? We have a PM who is religious, yet he was the architect of detention of children with his ‘stop the boats’ policy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-25/secret-surveillance-cameras-in-grandmas-nursing-home-legal/10298834

And finally a news item on Alzheimer whereby it is suggested that the plaque on braincells is a result of Alzheimer but not necessarily the cause. They are looking for volunteers to take part in trials. I was glad to read that testosterone and oestrogen boosting  fish oil might well be preventing Alzheimer. I always thought that eating herrings, sardines and anchovies was the way forward. I might well take a tin of sardines to the cinema next time.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-25/alzheimers-disease-research-questions-plaque-as-cause-of-disease/10299514

I am so happy with my new moleskins!

 

 

Elder abuse.

A few days ago I noticed an ABC news item that struck me as relevant. It dealt with the growing queues of elderly people missing out on levels of subsidised in-home care. Often people need respite and care either for themselves or another person such as a partner or family members. A segment on TV news dealt with same issue.

Footage was shown of an elderly woman hoisting her severely affected Alzheimer  and Parkinson husband up in a sling from one side of the house to the other. A steel beam was bolted onto the ceiling and an electric block and tackle system was used to move her husband about the house. Another case was how a woman needed to be helped from her bed into the electric chair in which she could perform most house-hold duties. It is the relentless care day in day out that many need respite from. But, as always the money for those essential services is lacking. Yet we talk about tax cuts!

The article is here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-03/govt-scrambles-amid-growing-queue-for-home-care-packages/9387692

Here is a sample of the article; “The latest figures reveal there are now 101,508 people in the queue for appropriate home-care packages.More than 60,000 have no package at all, and 40,000 have a package at a lower level than what they need”.

And then this morning on the TV, ( where else)? The Prime Minister being interviewed, waxing lyrically how tax cuts to corporate Australia was going to help employment and profits. He followed this up with while looking up,   prophesying by seemingly divine inspiration, that this would then guarantee increased wages to the workers. Surely he must have felt thickening of his insincerity.

I mean, look at America. Do the wages there go in tandem with corporate profits? In Australia profits in businesses between 2016/17 went up 20%, yet wages a mere 1%. The trickle down effect is a huge joke.

 

It seems a logical conclusion, that if countries keep giving tax cuts, it eventually means no tax will be raised at all. Pity for those that are waiting for home-care packages.

If you want to take an example to follow. Look at Northern Europe ,especially the Scandinavian countries were taxes are very high, but so are  welfare levels. AND, their economies are booming. Our Prime Mister, Mr Turnbull, should try and raise revenue. A sugar tax alone would bring in hundreds of millions a year and save billions on health care. Our GST could be raised on a level with overseas countries. Why does the government never mention raising revenue and income?.

And right on the heels of the above article, another one popped up this morning about elder abuse which now seem more often than not to come from within the family.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-04/the-silent-epidemic-of-elder-abuse-in-our-suburbs/9383812

I know if I get ripped off by own family or need to be moved around in a sling suspended from a steel beam, totally gaga, I will, before that arrives, have the sanity and means to get-out-of-here-quick smart.

Pardon me; your accent is still showing.

In Belgium at 5 or 6 years. ( to put on weight).After the war.

‘Tell me honestly, where is your ‘real’ home?’ I don’t really ask that question immediately whenever I meet someone who talks with a foreign accent. Generally, I wait for an opportune moment. It can’t come quick enough. My grandchildren squirm in embarrassments whenever I fire up engaging with foreigners about the original birthplace and talk about other countries. Fortunate for them both their parents are without any accents, both were born in Australia. Grandpa and grandma are a different country altogether, but I do remember when much younger, also being a bit apprehensive when my parents tried to speak English in my presence to a neighbour or an Australian.

The ultimate was for my mother calling the baker ‘bugger’. Dutch is a phonetic language and of course English is not. You could not blame my parents for calling him the ‘bugger’ even though he would just be called upon to leave 2 loaves of white bread. We kept trying to correct my mum’s pronunciation but never succeeded. The baker must have just put it all down, good naturedly, to those ‘continentals’ and their lascivious manners and ways.

Of course, the need to blend in and be invisible is often keenly sought when growing up. It is such an embarrassing business. When old, one wishes for more attention, but the young just race past the old.

One just never knows with old fogeys what kind of stupid remarks they might still make. Alzheimer can’t come quick enough, just give us our money and then piss off. Has anyone read recently about old folks getting ripped off by their own children. They end up fighting over the antique clock or box with jewellery and wedding rings that no longer fits those gnarled shrunken fingers? It happens in close knit communities. Can you believe?

Even though I was fifteen on arrival here, my foreign accent is still here and will never go. The odd thing is that my Dutch has an Australian accent. Years ago while in Amsterdam with Helvi, I asked direction to a cinema. To our surprise we were asked if I perhaps could be a Dutchman who was living or had lived for a long time in Australia. I was stunned. How could you tell, I asked the man? Oh, he said ‘I have met  a few Dutchmen who came from Australia.’ They all speak Dutch with an Australian accent. Even more intriguing is that Helvi’s English has a mixture of both Finnish and Dutch with Dutch being more dominant.

In any case, my question about trying to suss out what people’s ‘real home’ is can be put down to many still having a foot still in both continents. I am always somewhat curious what it means to have soaked up enough of the real Australia way of life to have totally blended in with the locals. Most of the locals come from somewhere, unless rooted in the ‘real Australia’, the traditional owners of this land we call Australia. In any case, my question is often met with pleasure and surprise. It makes for interesting conversation and it passes the time!

Moments filled with nothingness and Homeless Man.

Homeless man at Byron Bay

There are moments or even lots of moments that no matter how pensively I might stare out at the rain, I am devoid of being all there. A blankness in watching the patter of rain hitting the Manchurian pear tree just outside my window is hypnotic. It does beat watching the petrol bowser tick over at the local service station with the 4c discount being mentally calculated in the exact $50.-payment. A triumph of which I wrote already previously. You can now see how far I have sunk.

Even yesterday I stared at a blue spikey flowering plants that at the moment seems to be featured on nature’s top hit parade. I thought and thought, sweat under my armpits. What on earth is the name of this plant? I still knew it last Monday. Yet today, nothing but a hollow response echoing on and on. Is Mrs Alzheimer knocking on my door? If so; ‘be gone loose women and never darken my doorstep again.’ Here let me put a banana skin on my doorstep so you break your neck in a spectacular back flipping fashion. And then; a miracle, a miracle, it came! It is called the Agapanthus. Two handed hand clapping and the rain took a break in respect.

It is Helvi’s birthday today and coffee with pre-ordered Fruit tart from Gum-nut shop were ready at 8.30am. Both of us in pyjamas and the rain pelting it out again festively. The Gum-nut shop wins blue ribbons at the Sydney Royal Show each year on a variety of their products. The custard tart and vegetarian pie are our favourites when we go there with our JRT ‘Milo’. He usually gets the crusts from both and has no hesitation to also scrounge from other customers trying to enjoy their early coffee with pies or tarts unhindered by begging dogs. Milo’s charm usually breaks down their résistance and he get rewarded well above his owners. I have often thought of sitting outside Woolworth near the bags of potting mix with Milo. I could have sign ‘please give generously’ and look a bit hungry. In my case looking hungry comes naturally. Perhaps a box with some coins in the hope some might be touched and willing to give generously in exchange of Milo accepting a few pats. He is that popular.

This brings me back to our visit to Byron Bay a couple of weeks ago. One late afternoon and right in the middle of a busy throng of people I noticed a man sitting on the ground with a large sign blaming our PM Tony Abbott for being homeless. I gave generously but asked if I could take his photo. He accepted and here is the shot. I noticed someone had given him a wrap sandwich and some bananas.

It is all there and so much more. Be gone Tony Abbott, don’t darken my doorstep. You are not even a loose woman.

My Aunt ‘Agnes.’

My Aunt Agnes
My mother’s sister was a good woman. A good woman is one who buys children soft ice cream between crispy wavers from Dutch Benjamin’s lolly shops. We all know that. Her name was ‘tante Agnes’ or Aunty Agnes.

She was either younger or older than my mother and liked children at times more than my mum. Feel free to think of her either way!

Of course my mother had six and she none. That might well explain that dichotomy. She, my mum, at times felt she might have had too much of a good thing. Aunt Agnes, as far as I remember, always lived in Amsterdam and we first in Rotterdam but after the WW2 in The Hague.

I often wondered how, with war, famine, no gas, no electricity, no food, cold, misery and Wernher v Braun’s V1 and V2 coming down unexpectedly, my parents libido wasn’t at least a bit frozen as well. On the other hand, it gave them moments of warmth and they were in love. In any case, mum ‘unpacked’ four during the war and two more after.

Apart from those ice creams, Aunt Agnes always cut out my favorite newspaper comic strip ‘Eric the Norseman’, saved them up and posted them to me. I used to ask my mother if the latest post had brought me the strips of Noormans yet. (Eric is large and strong, a fine swordsman).

I suppose we all had those aunts! A less endearing aspect of her otherwise loving and caring nature was her obsession with our fingers and nails. She was keen on hygiene and I and four brothers were not. We all traveled through a stage of being totally ignorant of needing water and soap, let alone removing detritus or anything, apart from the occasional splinter, under our fingernails…

She had a demonic attitude to our dirty hands and fingers. Scrubbing them by a hard brush was one of those experiences we suffered. We somewhat reluctantly offered our hands for inspection before mealtimes in exchange for her generosity in ice creams during her visits and lemonade on our birthdays. We never really regretted this hand scrubbing.

Of course, at that stage in history kids still had things like the promise of an ice cream to anticipate and look forward to, sleepless nights just thinking about it. Just the promise of an ice cream would make us behave for days.

Now kids take a few licks of a Gay Time ice cream and chuck it at a frail pensioner trying to cross the road. It also takes a $690.- G5 Tablet with 149 Android Apps for the 9 year old to fold his pyjamas or do the washing up and not say ‘fuck you’ to his grand-dad while giving him a good kick in the crutch. It’s a different world.

My Aunty Agnes was a good soul and her favorite colour was shades of blue with just enough silver jewelry to make her look very smart. Never gold, too gaudy, she would say.

Many years ago she visited us in Revesby Australia and we still loved her even though by that time we were well above doing things for ice creams.

H and I also visited her in Holland after she retired as a school teacher. Towards the end she suffered Alzheimer and at one stage she had put just one of her legs into a nylon stocking but not the other. She noticed herself how the empty nylon leg was just dangling there. She still had the sense to laugh heartily about it. She never took herself seriously.

Aunt Agnes was a good Aunt.

Autumn is getting serious

.

The autumn leaves are in a serious downturn. Going past the hospital grounds I was wading knee-deep in them. I love walking through them listening to their particular sound. The crunching of leaves underfoot cannot be imitated easily. It is a sound of my childhood when I used to play with my friends no matter what weather. It would be the leaves in autumn and the swishing of snow in winter.

In winter, and if there was a good pack of snow, we would take matches and some lint with us and try and find snow bubbles above the frozen canals of The Hague were we were living after the war. The gases that were free to rise when the water wasn’t frozen would get trapped under ice or snow and form gas bubbles which we would explore and set alight with our matches and burning lint. The aim and hope was always to get a big bubble with a huge explosion. We never found the really big one..

Is it true that boys are more drawn to fire and explosions and does that explain the inclination to wars and bloody mayhem? I watched a mob of primary school kids running into a park. Within minutes the boys separated and went running after each other rumbling and play fighting, rolling over the ground. The girls in the meantime, few rumbled or threw each other to the ground. Most were happy to sit in the shade of a tree and talking. Is it nature or nurture?

Another favorite trick of mine was to put petrol on water in our kitchen sink and light it. How I was fascinated by something burning that was floating on top of water. I suppose it was a lesson in science. I always did this when my mum was having a nap in the living room which was on the other side of a long wall-papered corridor. The bottle of petrol was kept in a green cupboard underneath the sink and was used by my father to fill his cigarette lighter. In those days it was the height of sophistication to light a cigarette by petrol filled lighter. Men walked around not just smelling of tobacco but also of petrol seeping out of there lighters.

The contraption used a small rotating disc against a flint stone that would ignite the petrol infused cotton wool wick that was kept inside the housing of the lighter and which would protrude through a small hole at the top of the lighter. Even the modern lighter uses some inflammable liquid or gas to light the cigarette. Of course the delights of smoking have long gone since, together with so many other enjoyable cultural habits. We now ingest more tablets than ever before but they are just not as satisfying as the pipe, cigar or cigarette.

Let’s also not forget that instead of smoking we now suck on sugar, salt and fats as never before.  Even so, we live longer or at least stay alive longer but is it still hotly debated if it is ‘living’ when the number of Alzheimer and dementia suffering people are skyrocketing and queuing up by the millions at the gates of places with names such as Eventide, Golf-shore Delight,  or Heritage Thistle.

I don’t want to grow old and in my demented state start grabbing nurses by the bum or mumble obscenities in church and suck up farts in a bicycle pump and then stalk my best and equally old and fading friend and give him the full benefit of a recently digested Brussel sprout blast.

It would be nice to grow old and still be writing my little nonsensical pieces within some reasonable word order.  I have some doubts though. Lately I wake up having to piss almost every couple of hours during the night. I thought of rigging myself up with a handy rubber harness above the bowl where I can hoist myself up with pulleys and ropes and sleep there instead of in bed.  I have to check the Senior Magazines for any aids. I am sure to find some. I bet many might well end up chucking a mattress on the bathroom floor.

In the meantime, my life of decades ago  playing with exploding gas bubbles under the frozen and snowed canals of my youth and now mulling over the possibility of hanging from a suspended harness above the loo is still proof of a busy and interesting time ahead.