Personal Blogs

Hmmm. Bitty old week I’ve had this week, so today’s blog will probably be all over the place. It may also be quite self-indulgent (but then aren’t all blogs, when you come to think about it?). You have been warned...

Met up with a friend I haven’t seen for a few weeks and had a lovely wander round the park and shops followed by some nice nosh and a few drinky-winkies. Eee it were grand, as they might say up north if feeling particularly stereotypical. The conversation turned to my life pre-parenting days, when I was a care worker supporting disabled adults with learning difficulties. Best job I ever had. I worked at several places, but my favourite role was supporting six people in a semi-independent unit, helping them to develop self management skills like cooking, cleaning, shopping and so on – things that are poxy chores for us but are hugely empowering for those who have lived in long term institutional care and have had everything done for them, often whether they liked it or not. Ended up welling up a bit when I dug out some old photos of them gathered round my flat, which we used to visit once a week after doing the shopping so they could socialise with my neighbours and have a cup of tea and a cake without dipping into their own money.

The photo that got to me was one of a woman in her mid-thirties, who, for the sake of this blog, I will call ‘Suzy’. She was holding my son, Ben, when he was no more than a couple of weeks old, just sitting on the sofa with him cradled in her arms and smiling. Suzy had Down’s syndrome, and she told me just after I had taken the pic that he was the first baby she had ever ‘been allowed’ to hold. When I showed the photo to my friend last week she said ‘Ben looks in safe hands’. He was.

Another photo had the whole group sitting around my patio drinking tea – well the whole group plus one, actually, as I’d had the big minibus that day and been able to take one extra shopping with us. The plus one was another young lady with Down’s syndrome who we will call ‘Nicky’. Nicky was hilarious; sharp as a tack and an answer for everything. She had a bit of a crush on me and would hide behind doors and leap out at me, clinging onto my neck and kissing me on the cheek then running off laughing and punching the air in victory like a footballer after scoring a winning goal. She didn’t particularly care what I was doing – I might have been pushing another resident in a wheelchair or carrying a tray of food through from the kitchen – so over time I developed the reflexes of a cat, but she’d still manage to catch me out at least a couple of times a week. That probably sounds very un-PC in this day and age (and a health and safety nightmare!), but in my opinion ‘PC’ often misses the point and throws the baby out with the bath water. ‘Fun’ is important too, even if it doesn’t crop up directly within Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Also in the photo is ‘Bill’, a man just a few years shy of retirement age who had lived in institutions from his teens when his parents had died. He had a non-specific learning disability, but nothing that in this day and age would have implied the need for residential care. One of the first initiatives for the semi-independent unit was to help the occupants of the cottage learn to prepare their own meals. For practical reasons this was only breakfast and tea during the week, but at the weekends we used to cook everything from scratch. We’d make a shopping list on Friday afternoon, democratically planning the menu etc. Sometimes, with an even number of residents, this would entail cooking two separate joints or puds, but that happened far less often than you might imagine.
 
Apart from trips out and the ‘alternative menu’ of the care home’s kitchen Bill had never had the freedom to choose whatever he liked to eat, and he struggled with the concept. I’d ask him ‘what do you fancy for dinner Sunday, Bill?’, and he’d reply ‘is it chicken?’ I’d say, ‘it can be if you like – what do you want?’ and he’d say ‘is it lamb?’ A few months later Bill had lobbied successfully for a ‘house cat’ (up until that point he’d always shared the main house moggy), and was taking a major role on the resident's consultative committee. I was particularly pleased when he told one of the senior staff to fuck off when they went into his room without asking first... It’s inspiring, the quantum leaps people can make if they’re given the support and opportunity.

Anyhoo, will stop there as this quite serious so far compared to my usual blogs and that may not be what you signed up for...

IN OTHER NEWS: My home brew stout I started last week may well be dead, carried off by the sudden cold snap that started two days in to the fermentation process. I bought a hydrometer this morning and will try to work out how to use it over the weekend. I also bought a tiny little plastic jug called a ‘sample flask’ which the local hardware shop had the audacity to charge me nearly four quid for. I said ‘four quid? Four quid? I could buy a jug kettle for that!’ The girl said, ‘not in here you couldn’t.’ It was worth four quid just for that line...