Bradwan's Blog

A leaking roof prompted me to worry a lot about my house; worries not made easier by have to be away so much. It was clear the problem could be much worse than one loose tile, and I had to find a roofer`I could trust (I once had one nick the lead strip that sealed my sky-light). After a lot of searching I got a good roofer called Mick, who fixed the leak yesterday. I need to spend a lot more money on getting all the slates re-laid at some point, but at least I know the full measure and rough price of it now.

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=211077088005215264508.0004c1014c01c4d999303&ie=UTF8&ll=53.840411,-1.544287&spn=0.082762,0.040898&t=h&output=embed
View Watkins Walks 2 – Galloping Glyn’s Eccup bluebell walk in a larger map

There should be a route for this walk, but not yet.

A film including my lass

I have done a map on google maps of the annual Faygate bluebell walk. I am also editing a film which should be uploaded soon.

Glyn’s Faygate bluebell walk

Ma is well but age has caught up with her. At 90 she can still touch her toes, and will at the slightest chance, but she is struggling with walking and gripping.

Perhaps more important than helping ma physically cope is helping her finally get to grips with the way the english language uses ‘he’ and ‘she’. Neither Finnish nor Karelian have those words and ma often mixes them up. I think the real problem is the way they work as pronouns (look – ‘he’ definition – up). Ma tells lots of stories about lots of people and in her first languages every person would have a special pronoun after the first mention. In english you use he or she, and if there are lots of them and you just use he or she the story becomes impossible to follow.

Ma was quite surprised when I managed to make her understand this, but she thought about it and was then shocked at just how hard some of her stories were to follow.

On Tuesday I made a sandwich in a rush. I had eaten over half before I thought Hey! I didn’t put blue cheese in this!

12 hours later my ecosystem ran out of me, and for most of the next 36 hours I managed to do only two things, one of which was sleep.

Fortunately ma has now got 4 care visits a day and can move about the house. I still had to get out of my sick bed on Wednesday to explain things to 7 different nurses, carers and assessors; and do the same to 3 similar on the phone. I did just manage each time and went back to sleeping, or worse.