A Cat Story

I thought I'd bring an old story out of the archives to entertain one and all...

So, my grandmother is now in a nursing home, but prior to this, I used to see her fairly often, taking her shopping and having lunch together, doing the odd chore, that sort of thing.

Now, my gran always had pets, for as long as I can remember.  In the her last years at home she had a cat and a dog, Lucy the cat, and B-For the dog (full name would be "B-For Beautiful").  As you can see in the image below, of five different flavours of cat food, my gran was very considerate of the desires of her pets - as long as they didn't want to be out of her sight for any length of time, if Lucy tried to go out for more than a few minutes my gran would be out in the garden, doing her best to round up the errant feline.  I remember my gran had a gate at the side of the house which was generously tied up with string and old dog leads in an attempt to stop the cat from going through it, which would have been more effective if the gate hadn't had cat-sized gaps in it.

But I digress.

Sadly, pets do become ill over time, and Lucy was getting on in years.  For a couple of weeks when I had been visiting my gran was telling me that Lucy was acting out of character more and more.  This went on for about two weeks, and things came to a head one Sunday when I walked in the door and my gran told me, weeping, that Lucy would have to go to the vets, and be put down - Lucy just wasn't herself any more.

Now, allow me to enlighten you with some detail of Lucy's personality.

All Lucy wanted in life was to be left alone, and if she couldn't be left alone, then she would settle for killing me.

Lucy liked to hide under the Welsh dresser in the corner of the living room, or behind the sofa at the other side of the room.  If you wanted to get Lucy out of these places, you couldn't call her out.  You couldn't encourage her out with snacks.  You couldn't gently stroke her and draw her out.

You had to grab her and pull her out, while she employed her claws to try to keep her in her hiding place.  I recall on more than one occasion donning a coat and leather gardening gloves in order to pull the Welsh dresser away from the wall, then throwing a towel over the cat so that hopefully enough its claws would be hooked into the fluffy towel instead of being locked in a death grip around the bones in my wrists.  Whatever I tried, nothing ever worked, Lucy would always somehow find a bit of unprotected skin to shred.

So, I wasn't looking forward to getting Lucy out and taking her to the vets, although I will admit that a small part of me wasn't entirely unhappy that this potentially could be the last time that my arms would be oozing blood out of a variety of claw tears.  It seemed a bit extreme however to have a cat put down just because it was acting a bit strange, so I planned to take Lucy to the vet, find out what (if anything) was wrong, and take her back.

I cleared the various bits of furniture away from the sofa, where Lucy was hiding, and bent down to take a look.

Four glittering cats eyes looked back at me.

 "There's another bloody cat behind there!" I said. My grandmother expressed the view that I must be mistaken, until I got both cats out and she was forced to accept that there were indeed two cats.  Whilst they did look similar, I could easily work out which wasn't Lucy, because that was the one that wasn't trying to rip my face off.
 I concluded that the other cat must have wandered in at some time (possibly when I had the front door open to bring in shopping or something), attracted by the large and interesting variety of cat food on offer, been shut inside, and because my gran tightly controlled animal access and egress to the property, was unable to escape again.  It was entirely possible that Lucy was acting strange because there was another cat in the house, or perhaps my gran, who doesn't have the best eyesight, was encountering the captured cat around the house and thought it was Lucy.

 You'll be pleased to know that after the rogue extra cat was released Lucy lived on for some time, back in her normal character, slicing me periodically.

The Nursing Home

I'll start this post off by saying that I apologise if it is not up to my usual mediocre standards, however British Summer Time ended last night, which meant that a huge amount of people got an extra hour in bed today, whilst another grouping of people (which happens to include me) has a small child that has no concept of British Summer Time and woke up at ten past four expecting CBeebies, jam-covered toast and a glass of smoothie.

Long-term readers may remember these posts about taking my gran shopping and having lunch with her in Waitrose, however things have moved on.  Several months back she had a couple of falls and eventually it was agreed that the best thing for her was to go into a nursing home.

Ever a creature of habit, my gran has wasted no time in settling in a new routine, as follows:

1. In the morning she wakes up and gets a bowl of sweetened porridge for breakfast.  She doesn't like sweetened porridge but because she doesn't like to complain about it (and I suspect that she's the only person in the home that wants it unsweetened) she has it sweetened.
2. After that she'll be got out of bed, dressed, and sat in her chair.  Here she stays for the morning, talking to her room mate, until lunchtime.
3. Lunch typically consists of three courses - soup, of which she has one spoon full and then leaves it on the side, a main course which she devours, and a pudding, which she waits for her roommate to eat hers and then gets the roommate to swap the plates.
4. After lunch she'll be put into her nightgown and returned to bed, as her back is playing up.
5. And at teatime, again she will eat the main course and then swap the pudding plates with her roommate to allow her to again get two portions.

That's not to say that there isn't excitement.  There was the time when my gran slipped out of her chair, and ended up sitting on the floor.  When the staff came to see what had happened, and asked her "What are you doing?", she responded, not unreasonably with "Nothing - I'm just sitting on the floor!"

I generally visit her once a week, bringing a number of the following items:

• Walnut whips - she doesn't actually eat these, but when I visit we share them - that is, I eat the chocolate with the whip inside, and she has the walnut.  I recall the time that she asked me what nut was on top of a walnut whip.  I told her to think about what she'd asked me.
• Marshmallows - these are for her roommate.  When the coast is clear and no staff are around, my gran wraps up half a dozen marshmallows in a piece of tissue and beckons her roommate over to take them.
• Toffees and assorted bags of sweets - similarly to the marshmallows, these are actually for the roommate, and will be mixed with wild abandon to give the roommate a selection of treats.
• Cartons of apple juice - these aren't needed very often, as it's rare that my gran actually drinks one, but she does like to keep a supply of twenty or so handy in her wardrobe.

Today she was telling me that there is no difference between men and women, except that men have a thingy.  And, apparently, it's a good job that they have a thingy, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to wee.

I can't finish the post without reminding all about the run up to #HOTDRINKDAY on Sunday the 2nd of November.  If you're a tea fan, you're in the right place, because The Blog of Thog is the home of all tea drinkers - read my announcement here.  If, on the other hand, you're a coffee aficionado, well Mr Clark at Life, Explained is there for you, and you can read his announcement here.  We need all you social media folk to be prepared next Sunday to put forward your views - what drink do you prefer?

And don't forget to vote!

Having Lunch in Waitrose

I've talked in the past about taking my gran shopping, but I wanted to write a little more about lunch.

We generally go to Waitrose for lunch - actually, skip the word generally - we always go to Waitrose for lunch, except for perhaps once or twice a year when Waitrose has so annoyed my gran (probably by not giving her a receipt) that we go to McDonalds one week.

So, we go round Waitrose and buy some cat food, and then we separate - I, to pay for the cat food (2 boxes of Gourmet Ocean Delicacies), and my gran to locate a table in the cafe.

Ideally, we get one of the tables alongside the tills, because there's lots of space to get to them and my gran doesn't have to worry about her mobility scooter getting in anyones way.

Once I've got her seated (as mentioned before, seated means sat right on the very edge of her chair) and equipped with a selection of two newspapers/magazines - ideally one of which will be the Express for her, and the other the Independent for me - I'll go to tackle the most dangerous part of the shop.

The Waitrose Cafe Queue.

No one gives an inch in the queue to get served at the cafe.  I've had older ladies nudging me in the back because I've not moved to take up an millimetre of space that opened up in front of me a second ago.

And everyone has their My Waitrose cards on their tray.

Everyone.

I don't know why, because all you do with the My Waitrose card(s), to claim your free drinks, is when you get to the till, you hand them to the till operator.  There's no need to display them on their tray, and yet we all do.

Perhaps it's to prove that we belong.  Yes, I am an overweight gentleman adorned with a pair of jeans and a Space Invaders T-Shirt, but I have a My Waitrose card, therefore I may stay.

They do a damn fine panini though, I must admit.

The Weekly Routine

Once a week I take my gran shopping, and being a creature of routine the day goes thusly:

 I will arrive at my grans, aiming to be there for 9.30am but inevitably being 5-10 minutes late.  I got away with being late for a while because she'd managed to get all of her clocks and watches set 10 minutes slow, but since the "It's not eleven o'clock yet!" incident during the 11am Remembrance Sunday silence, they've all been put right.

 We'll have a brief chat, I'll check her mail, put her rubbish and recycling in the appropriate bins, and get her coat.

 When ready we'll go to the car.  An issue often arises at this point, as my gran uses a mobility scooter.  The issue is that when I'm moving the scooter into position (for example outside her front door), I'll have it on full speed, but my gran uses it on its lowest setting.  What does happen from time to time is that I forget to turn the speed down after maneuvering it, leading to my gran speeding, out of control, off into the sunset.

 We'll get in the car.  My gran may attempt to put on her seatbelt, but more commonly will pull it across for me to do.  I now understand what Peter Kay means about his grandmother just holding the belt across her lap rather than plugging it in.

The routine involves going to Lidl, Waitrose, and Poundstretcher.  In that order.  Every week.

 As we're driving to Lidl, my gran will dig through her purse for any 1p, 2p, or 5p coins she may have, which are deposited in my drinks holder as a tip.  This is very nice of her, but does make it awkward when you're trying to put a drink in there and it's balanced on a pile of copper.

 We get to Lidl.  We will park in one of the west facing spaces, looking into the windowed side of the shop, ideally with an empty space next to us to make it easier to get the scooter around.

 We go around Lidl.  This takes about half an hour, and despite my gran having a list, the list is generally only paid a minimal amount of attention as we go around the shop, following a well-rehearsed script honed over the years.

 "How many cheese twists did you want?" I'll ask her (the answer will most likely be 3.  If there are no cheese twists, she'll have cinnamon swirls.)

 "Do you want any mini-Kit Kats?" she'll ask me. The answer will be no, because they come in bags of 20, she already has about 30 mini-Kit Kats at home, and I worry that if I say yes she'll buy another 20 and have something of a mini-Kit Kat mountain that, if my son spots them, will result in a small child meltdown when I have to explain to him that he can't actually eat 50 Kit Kats for lunch.

 Biscuits are next - she will buy jaffa cakes, half of which I suspect she passes on to my mother, possibly rich teas and ginger nuts, and most likely some Penguins.  Penguins are not referred to as Penguins, but as a variety of different names, just to make life interesting.

 Then we get into the fruit and veg area.  She may buy baby plum tomatoes from here, but doesn't do so very often. Satsumas are felt to see if they are sufficiently ripe - they should have a loose peel, but aren't too dry - if they pass the test she'll buy them, otherwise the purchase of these is saved for Waitrose.

 Apple pies will be purchased, possibly with some jaffa cake bars alongside.  My gran will offer to buy me mushrooms (which I'll accept) and grapes (which I'll usually decline).

 I should note this week we got cherry bakewells instead of apple pies, because they'd sold out of apple pies.  Don't think that we aren't flexible, not for a minute, no sir.

 We will buy three sandwiches, a BLT, a Chicken Salad, and a Cheese Ploughmans.  We may buy four mini pork pies.

 We will head down the next aisle, my gran reminding me to "look at both sides".  We may buy bananas (a small bunch) and two packs of apple juice cartons.

 The third aisle is one that we may get away without buying anything, although options down here are Quavers (if Morrisons don't sell them cheaper) and tonic water.  Sometimes at the end of the third aisle / start of the fourth Lidl will have unusual food items for sale, i.e. they'll declare "It's US week!" and have US beer and hot dogs and squeezy mustard sauce for sale.  Whatever week it is, I'll pick a beer up.  And fortune cookies if it's Chinese week.

 Down the fourth aisle it's ibuprofen, possibly cat litter, and occasionally washing liquid if she wants me to do some washing.

 And on the last aisle we'll purchase milk, and look at the refrigerated special offer items, which always includes big chunks of cheese.  I suspect this is mainly for my benefit because I can't remember the last time my gran bought anything from here, but because I won't be getting home for 5 or 6 hours, I've never bought anything from here either.

 We'll then circle around, and head for the tills.  By the time we get to the tills I should worked out an estimate of how much the shopping will cost.  The leeway for error on this estimate is around 7%.  If I exceed this limit (by the final value being too cheap or too expensive) I will earn a well-deserved "You said it would be £XXX!" from my gran.

 When it gets to being our turn to load goods onto the till belt, I'll put my grans items first, and then mine, with my grans sorted roughly in the order that I want to put them into the bags.  Carrier bags will be removed from my grans bag and opened up, ready to accept the scanned goods.

 Now, it's our turn to get our stuff scanned and pay for it.

 I remember back when I was little, and going to Sainsburys with my parents.  At that time scanning food seemed to take so long that it would have been quicker to type the prices in by hand.

 Then Aldi opened opposite Sainsburys.

 At Aldi the shopping was scanned in a flash, a bolt of lightning wouldn't move as fast as the till operators hands did over that scanner.

 Now Lidl isn't quite as fast as that, but they don't hang about, and one of the staff in particular is fast as anything.  If we get her, I'm most likely going to have to resort to dumping the shopping in the trolley and bagging it after paying - but that doesn't mean I won't try to keep up!  So I do my best to scoop the scanned goods into my ready and prepared bags for life, with the aim of being able to go straight to the car and unload the bags without any packing beforehand.

 At any rate, we finish at Lidl, and drive to Waitrose (to be precise, parking in the disabled bay immediately to the right of the entrance to Poundstretcher if at all possible).  We'll go to Waitrose to the cafe and get my gran seated on the very edge of a chair - I'm convinced that she's going to fall off one day, I do try to get her to sit fully on a chair but she seems to prefer sitting on the edge - and purchase some combination of paninis, bacon/sausage sandwiches, cheese toastie (okay it's Waitrose so it's called Croque Monsieur, but that doesn't change the fact that it's cooked bread with cheese in), or if they are lacking in a number of the aforementioned items, a toasted teacake.

 Because we have a MyWaitrose card, we get two drinks (a small coffee and some kind of tea - either herbal or regular depending on how I'm feeling) but only have to pay for one.  I have registered for my own MyWaitrose card because I imagine it's going to help me feel middle class. And, more importantly, it'll get me a free drink in the cafe.  My gran always comments that most of the people in the cafe aren't eating anything - I imagine it's probably because they're all enjoying a free drink.  But my card hasn't arrived yet and so we currently pay for one drink.

 When I return from buying food I must have a receipt with me so that my gran can see what we're having for lunch.  The receipt is essential. It does not matter if we have the food and I can explain what each item is - we need the receipt!  My gran will check that we still need to keep the MyWaitrose card, I have a feeling that it doesn't have a suitable place to live in her purse and she'd prefer to get rid of it if possible.

 In the cafe we'll eat and drink, read whatever newspaper or magazine is available - my gran prefers the Mail or the Express, I prefer the Guardian or the Independent (or Sunday equivalents ie Observer).

 We'll finish the day off by going to Poundstretcher for three books with nice stories and large print, one box of Whiskas cat food, some Walnut Whips, and possibly a bag of sweets for me - I'll try to resist the latter, but some times my will weakens.  My gran will run over one of the feet of the revolving stand holding the books for children with her mobility scooter.

And in a nutshell, there is my weekly routine!

The use of attempting to pay for things as a resuscitation device

I am completely unable to pay for anything when in the vicinity of my grandmother.  This eighty-one year old kindly looking person uses some kind of interrogation practice probably outlawed by most countries to make you tell her how much anything cost that you bought, and then uses further evil techniques to make you take money from her.

A typical conversation goes like this:

 I'll walk into her living room. "Hi gran."
 She'll smile, and say "Hello. How much do I owe you."
 "Nothing, I've not brought you anything." I'll respond.  She'll use some kind of X-Ray vision at this point.
 "What about the bird seed you hid in the other room?"
 I'll shrug. "That wasn't a lot, forget about it."
 "No! You need your money!"
 "You need yours - you're on a pension." I'll attempt.  This will be batted away with a waved hand.
 "I haven't got anything to spend it on. How much was it?"
 "Um, five pounds."
 "Oh - I haven't got a fiver. Here's ten. Then you've got a little bit for going to the shop for me." she'll say, handing me a ten pound note.
 "Oh... thank you gran." I'll say, trying to think of a reason to say no but failing. She'll then rake through her purse, thinking.
 "I forgot! Here's five pounds for you to get a sandwich at work tomorrow." she'll then say, thrusting more money at me.
 "Didn't you say that you didn't have a fiver?"
 "Don't argue with your grandmother!"

Should she ever require the services of the emergency services and resuscitation is required, I shall merely call out from the doorway of the hospital "Gran I've paid for lunch okay, don't worry about it".  Within the next four seconds she'll be up and demanding her purse to recompense me.

Today can I recommend checking out web series My Gimpy Life - its lead character is (and played by) Teal Sherer, a disabled actress in Hollywood.  Teal played Venom in Series 2 of the Guild, but is overall much nicer a person in this show, which is well worth a watch.  The episodes can also be viewed on YouTube here.  They are looking for donations to let them make more episodes - visit the website to take part if you'd like to see more of the series.

The other thing I've been doing is getting more RAM installed in my PC.  When new the PC came with 2Gb, which at the time was more than adequate, but since I've been getting involved in video editing this has been badly shown to be in need of upgrade - more than once I've shut Adobe After Effects down due to lack of RAM.  And also more than once Windows seems to grind to a halt - I suspect my virus scanner for this though!  At any rate a RAM upgrade is a cheap, simple and effective way to get some more speed out of a PC.

The Crucial website has a handy system scanner which will tell you what RAM you've got in your PC, and what is compatible, and if you buy the RAM from them they even guarantee its compatibility.  You can of course use the scanner and then take its findings to another RAM seller, but Crucial prices are generally pretty competitive and for those that don't want to mess around opening the case up to check the motherboard it's a great time saver.

As it happens I had a couple of gift cards for PC World so I've just installed an additional 2Gb of RAM into my system, due to various reasons it says 4Gb installed (3.12Gb usable) which is annoying but at least the amount usable for actual problems is still a lot higher than it used to be, and the system is definitely more responsive.  I'm looking forward to giving the system a good test with some gaming and video editing to see what happens.