Parent Issues, Dips, Lows & Highs!

As I'm sure my regular readers have noticed, I haven't posted anything other than the daily bird news for a good while now! Last weekend was so rubbish, I didn't see the point of writing how rubbish it was! Last Saturday consisted of dipping the Broad-billed Sandpiper again (less said about that the better) and then having to make an urgent, speedy drive to Holme as I thought something had happened to my Mother – no response for an hour and a half when I tried to phone them, until my Father answered the phone, which made me massively panic, as Father can't walk by himself safely or get as far as the phone on the desk!!! When he answered the phone, he was short of breath and sounded distressed. When I asked where Mother was, he muttered something about 'over an hour' which I obviously concluded that he had not seen her for an hour. If my Father made the effort to get to the phone, something serious must be up. I also knew that Mother had had a tree surgeon over that afternoon (which cost her £100) to take down a tree which was in danger of falling through the shed roof and knowing her, she was more than probably moving logs left from this tree fell. My imagination ran riot and had visions of her hurting herself or much worse. I flew like the wind to their house. As I ran into the house, both parents were there. I went berserk and broke down in tears simultaneously! I won't repeat the words that followed, when I told Mother off for not answering the phone – and yes, she had been moving logs (I know her so well!) all around the garden for bird perches! Logs that I wouldn't have been able to lift. She is a time bomb waiting to go off – at 75 years old she should not be doing that! Role reversal with parents acting like wilful, naughty children! What made me really cross was the fact that Father was clearly emotional and upset by the fact that he had been worried about the amount of time he had not seen her. When your cognition is not 100% and you have no sight, an hour can seem like several. She insisted that she had told him she would be a while, but he had forgotten this. I got home late. Sunday I was working ALL day!

Onto this week – I lost another 1lb at SW, totalling 5.5lbs altogether now, its going to be a long road to a new me, but sticking with it! I'm really enjoying the food and this new way of eating, but its not bird friendly at all! Eg, I have porridge, soya yogurt and frozen fruit and a banana for breakfast/mid-morning snack, followed by a massive salad with things like falafels, new potatoes, salad, egg, cucumber, tomatoes, dressing etc for lunch and a piece of fruit. It would be difficult to take a salad if I was walking to Blakeney Point for example. If I have porridge oats, I can't have bread, so no sandwiches! Basically you can choose one item from the 'A' List and one off the 'B' List (bread and porridge are both on the B list!). Then you can have anything off the Free foods list like potatoes, rice, pasta, beans, pulses, eggs, quorn, sardines and loads more that I won't bore you with. You can also have up to 15 'syns' a day eg one of my favourites is 'Alpro Gingerbread Man Dessert' which is 5.5 syns, so you do have to be careful!

As from today (Friday) I'm now connected to 'Superpowered Fibre Broadband' with TalkTalk!!! I upgraded my account last week and have just spent a short time connecting the new router, which surprisingly went smoothly. I can't wait to load up some youtube videos to see the difference in speed. I can already see the difference in opening websites, much quicker.

My Father has suffered with another infection over the last couple of days and my poor Mother hasn't slept for the last two nights and is exhausted and stressed. My Mother has a serious phone phobia and I usually have to end up making the necessary phone calls. The last time Father was ill, he saw a community nurse, but no doctor. I decided that he needed to see an actual doctor this time and phoned his surgery. An on call doctor came out yesterday and prescribed and bought with him some sleeping tablets to try and calm him at night – not happy with this as they are addictive, and that wasn't the bl**dy issue! I know that my Father has a small degree of dementia set in (so would we all, if we sat in the same room 24 hours a day, couldnt' see and didn't see anybody else apart from our family), but NOT to the degree he has displayed over the last 48 hours – I knew he had another infection and the only answer to this, was to have another dose of anti-biotics, not sleeping tablets to screw him up further! A matron came out today to collect the requested urine sample which was clear, but borderline, so possibly an 'official' sign of infection. When I finished work I had to phone the surgery to get them to issue more anti-biotics which they faxed to a local pharmacy who will kindly deliver them to my parents tomorrow. Father seems to have calmed alot today, but has been sleeping alot, probably with sheer exhaustion from the hallucinating and shouting he's been doing. Such a desperately sad situation.

Anyway, here I am this evening, thinking about fluffy balls of colourful baby Bee-eaters perched on a bowed branch in the sunshine, way too far away for me to drive to Cumbria and too expensive, so need to forgot about that! Because my fibre broadband went live today, I was unable to access the RBA website in my lunch at work, until I got home to connect the new router and put the new code in. This meant that I had no idea about the Melodious Warbler at Blakeney Point until someone sent me a text early evening to say they were walking 'The Point'!!! If I had left when I found this out, I wouldn't have got to Cley Coastguards at a sensible time and would have ended up seeing the Melodious Warbler either in poor light or not at all, so that's another bird I've missed! If someone had sent me a text about it during the afternoon, I could have gone promptly after work, but they didn't. Let's also be realistic, it's highly unlikely to be there in the morning!

Hoping to get some birding in this weekend. Just over a month to collecting my new car! I still can't decide where to move to and if I should rent or buy. I don't like making big decisions, especially financial ones. You can't get things wrong when you get to my age!!!

The weather looks fabulous for the weekend and with southerly/easterly winds, may bring in some good birds hopefully. http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2652856