A kooky visitor

A few days ago, when I sat down to write Feathered visitors, about the birds that visit us regularly, I was surprised to find I had no photographs of a bird we hear almost every day, though we don't see him as often as that. That bird is the kookaburra, an Australian icon, also called the laughing kookaburra because of his curiously raucous birdsong.

Then today, just as A and I were coming up from the lower garden where we'd gone to pick a few oranges for tomorrow's breakfast juice, we were surprised to see a fat little kookaburra resting on an overhead branch quite near the back porch.

These birds don't usually hang around near the house, preferring to spend their time in the branches of the tall gum trees down in the paddock and up along the edges of the road. I think this year one family was roosting every night in the row of small bushy trees that our neighbour has planted as a hedge along the fenceline that divides our properties. I would hear them there every evening at dusk, noisily calling out the end of another day. But even when they are singing from the highest branches of gum trees across the road, we easily hear them. Theirs is not an especially beautiful song, but it is peculiar and distinctive among Australian birdsongs. And the cackle of kookaburras never fails to bring a smile to my face, sounding as it does as if the birds are having a boisterous quarrel.

A couple of years ago I had a close encounter with a very fat specimen. I was turning over the rich soil in this newly constructed vegetable patch. Sackfuls of horse manure had been spread on the new beds and left to rot over several months. And as I turned the rotted manure into the topsoil, scores of juicy big worms appeared. Not long after I started the job, I noticed a large kookaburra perched in a nearby tree, watching me, obviously uncertain whether to risk diving down for a feed of worm. I picked up a large worm and threw it onto the gravel path alongside the garden bed. The kookaburra immediately flew down and pounced on the worm. The he flew up to the sit on one of the bamboo tomato towers in the next plot. I continued turning over the bed, throwing the bird a worm now and then. He didn't catch them in mid-air, as the butcher birds do whenever I toss them scraps of leftovers. But he was quite comfortable being fed by me for nearly an hour. Don't look for the bird in this picture, though. As soon as I went up to the house to get my camera, he disappeared!

Up close, the kookaburra really is a most magnificent fellow, not as splendidly coloured as his smaller kingfisher cousins, perhaps, but thickly plumed, and as he often sits hunched over in a little ball he looks more like a child's fluffy woollen toy than a bird. He's well known as an early riser, too. Often he's the first bird to sing at the crack of dawn. In fact, if a family is nesting or roosting in a tree that has a view of our house, and for one reason or another I get up before dawn and switch on a light, the kookaburra will mistake my lit-up window as the dawn's early light. And sure enough: a short sharp chorus of kookaburra laughing will start up right after my light goes on, and stop when I turn it off. Because of that, plus the bird's slightly bizarre looks and strange guttural song, I can't help thinking of the kookaburra as being slightly dopey. Even so, he's always welcome at our place.

Partners in caring

Today is a cold wet day here in Queensland. Of course, 'cold' is relative. It's about 17 degrees Centigrade (64 Fahrenheit) and there's no wind at all. So I can hear North American and Tasmanian readers snorting in derision! But it did rain last night; the gauge says 22 mm – just enough to bed down my new mulch and provide a good drink to the grapefruit and oranges that are near to ripening. But this morning it's still damp out and there's hardly any sun, which is not a typical winter day here in Paradise. So we are feeling hard done by.

Except for this: I am home ALONE for the first time since A came home from hospital this time last year. Until today, except for one four-hour session each week when a Blue Care carer has come in to spend time with A while I go off somewhere, A and I have spent every waking and sleeping hour of the year in each other's company. And I have never in all that time been home alone. It has to be a testimony to our deep affection and great friendship that A and I have managed to get through this post-operative year without any eruptions that I can recall. But much of the credit for this has to go to him – to his easy-going nature, his willingness to accept change and his refusal to give up trying to get on with all those intellectual pursuits that have made him who he is. Even when, in the first few months after his release from hospital, he could not yet get to his feet without assistance, he would spend hours every day reading, relearning how to form letters and practising his writing, singing along to favourite songs and practising his speech.

This week A began a six-week program of rehabilitation at Eden Rehabilitation Centre. He'll go twice a week, for four hours a day. He's an in-patient during these sessions, so the program is covered by our health insurance. Focussing on 'Falls Prevention', the sessions include physiotherapy, occupational therapy and various other therapies tailored to meet the needs of the four people participating (three elderly women and A!) It's about a 15-minute drive for me to take him there, and the 8am starting time is a challenge for late-risers like me – though no problem for A, who easily gets up at 6am, which is what we both need to do to be ready in time. But except for one hour once a week, I'm not expected to participate in these 12 half-day sessions. So for most of A's time there I am free to do whatever I like. Today I decided I would come back home and just be here – alone.

Solitude has always figured high on my list of indulgences. The informally negotiated terms we agreed when A and I started living together more than 30 years ago included an acceptance that neither of us would give up following individual pursuits and chasing our own dreams. For A, this meant implementing a plan he was already formulating before we linked up, to give up his secure arts administration salary and return to freelance theatre work. We made sure to get a mortgage on our first home approved before A's resignation, because at that time banks were reluctant to consider anything but the male breadwinner's salary when making decisions about mortgages. Mortgage secured, though, A quit his job in administration and resumed work in theatre and scriptwriting.

Some years later, when my career development depended on an interstate move, there was never any question that A would agree to this. His being freelance made it easier, but at his age then (58), finding new outlets for his freelance services was not easy. Ten years later, when my consultancy work meant more overseas travel, A might well have been reluctant to make more changes at a stage of life when most people are well set in their ways. But when the time came to make a decision, he enthusiastically wrapped up his professional activities and made a graceful transition to supportive house-husband.

Being 17 years older than me probably made it easier for him to give up work, but it was late in life to take on the job of running a household, especially in a developing country! Even so, A tackled that with dogged persistence and great good humour. His experiences dealing with plumbers in the Philippines, where clients were expected to buy and supply all the necessary parts for any job before work could begin, are worthy of a separate post! (In the end, the fact that our flush toilets functioned at all was due more to A's handiwork with bits of metal and plastic – and rubber bands! – than to local plumbing expertise.)

So I continued doing aid work – in the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam – and A continued to manage our domestic life. Sometimes this meant setting up house for a few months in a hotel room, with lots of negotiation about such things as better reading lights, additional pillows for reading in bed, a second desk for A! Inevitably, when the time came for departure there would be heartfelt farewells with staff, thanks mainly to A's being on such good terms with everyone. Cleaning girls would give us gifts, as well as vice versa, and we would find ourselves at weddings and other family events with the families of young hotel managers and others whom A had befriended. In one two year assignment, we never again had to stand in line at the state bank's currency exchange office after the girls working there adopted A as a surrogate grandfather.

Over the years of my various assignments, A has helped to train local scriptwriters for educational TV, helped senior secondary students in Laos to direct a film as part of their introduction to media, and made market ladies giggle in gleeful expectation every time he would alight from a tuk-tuk to shop for the week's provisions. Now, those same qualities that enabled him to deal calmly with situations that many his age (and younger) would have found trying are helping him to tackle the more stressful challenge of losing his ability to use language. He's a survivor, and perhaps most importantly, he is adaptable. Nor is he too proud to admit what he doesn't know or can't do. And he doesn't mind accepting help. All of that makes my role as caregiver so much easier.

Even so, in recent years we have both had to give up things that meant a lot to each of us. We've lost access to my good income stream a lot sooner than I had planned. A has lost his independence, self-reliance and the pleasure of participating actively in the upkeep of house and property. He can no longer take on the little building projects he once loved. And I know he worries about being a burden. I have had to give up work that I loved and the chance of a livelier retirement than I expected. But perhaps most of all for me, for much of the past year I have had to forego the occasional spells of solitude I enjoyed while travelling alone on short-term contracts, disappearing into my studio for days at a time or just being at home alone while A was out pursuing his own activities.

Now we live in each other's pocket, it seems. For both of us, that's a new, more conventional existence than what we were used to. Luckily, we seem to have got through this difficult year of transition to...well, who knows to what! One thing we've realised is that none of us knows what will come next in life. This year we have learned not to worry about that so much, and just to live in the present.

Feathered visitors

It's about time I posted some photos of the birds that visit us regularly. I expected I'd have an abundance of photos to choose from, but in fact I didn't find that many really good photos in my bird file. Nevertheless, I'll use what photos I have on hand. And as I get better ones of any of these birds, I'll update this post. Maybe this will motivate me to work a bit harder at capturing better shots of some of these elusive but spectacular visitors.

Probably our most regular guests at the two bird feeders are small flocks of rainbow lorikeets. These birds are more plentiful at times when food is less abundant in the bush. I don't feed them a large amount of seed unless times are tough for them. But I have planted grevilleas and banksias near the bird feeders, and the flowers of those bushes are an even bigger attraction to the parrots than any birdseed I put out.

Slightly more exotic (at least to interstate visitors) is the pair of king parrots – Mr King (below) with his electric red head and breast positively glowing in sunlight, and Mrs King, a bit less flamboyant, perhaps, but in better light you would see that her green plumage is tinged here and there with touches of turquoise. They are a shy twosome, rarely allowing me to get near enough to take a good photo. And though they almost always visit as a pair, often one will sit in a nearby tree or bush, or on the back of a chair (as at right), while waiting for the other to feed.

Just as lovely as their showier cousins are the delicately toned pink and grey galahs. We don't get them too often, and it's probably just as well because they can get through a plate of birdseed pretty quickly. Large flocks are a menace to farmers, of course. But it's hard to think ill of anything as pretty as a pair of cooing galahs.

Speaking of menacing feeders leads quite naturally to thoughts of cockatoos. We have both the sulphur-crested white and the yellow-tailed black cockatoos at our place, though I've only seen the black ones down by the dam and never had a camera handy at the time. More common are the white fellows. They usually feed high up in my African tulip tree, whose giant seed pods they rip open and then drop from a great height. And every year they devour most of nuts on my pecan tree before I get any. But now and then one or two birds – sometimes five or six – will come down and raid the birdfeeders. Lucky they aren't aggressive. That big beak could do a lot of damage.

The last parrot I should mention is the dear little pale-headed parrot, an extremely timid visitor who comes alone or sometimes with a mate. Everything about him is delicate – colour, song and eating habits.

A family of frogmouths often used to spend the day sleeping in one of our trees. The bird gets its name, I guess, because when he opens that huge mouth, supposedly to frighten predators, he does look very much like a frog. But usually, he just sleeps the day away, posing successfully as a dead branch. It's months since we've seen a frogmouth in any of what used to be their favourite trees. But we have seen a few dead ones on nearby roads. Unfortunately their habit of eluding predators by keeping still isn't much use in the face of oncoming cars.

Not nearly in the same beauty stakes, but probably one of the most glorious songbirds hereabouts is the pied butcherbird. (Check out the songs of this and 39 other Australian birds at Birds in Backyards. The butcherbird featured there is the grey one, and our Queensland variety is black and white, but the song is the same, to my ear.)

The butcherbird is so called because of his eating habits and diet. Finding himself with a surplus of 'meat' (such as large insects or even small snakes), he will 'hang' the leftovers in a V-shaped fork of two branches, or on some protruding piece of branch or stem, ready for his next meal.

I once saw one of 'our' butcherbirds use that lethal beak to dislodge a little micro bat from a snug spot up behind one of our porch rafters, where the bat was sleeping away the day. The bird then chased the disoriented bat around the verandah for a few minutes, finally 'catching' him and flying off somewhere to enjoy this treat. Prior to this I didn't even realise these tiny bats were living up there.

I can't talk about birdsong without mentioning the inimitable eastern whipbird. We are lucky to have at least one pair of whipbirds who visit us regularly – especially after lots of rain, when they patrol the well-protected banks above and below our house several times a day. There, close plantings of various shrubs and small trees offer the protection these birds like to hunt in. But other than sticking to these shady enclaves, they are remarkably unconcerned about us coming near.

The difficulty in photographing whipbirds is that they rarely stay still for more than a few seconds. Travelling almost always in pairs, the showier male and his olive green partner bob around amongst the branches, often dropping suddenly to the ground to stir up dead leaves and mulch in search of the insects they favor. I have also seen one pair feeding on the little red berries of an asparagus fern, so they must be omnivores. They keep in touch while moving about via their hauntingly beautiful song, which is actually a duet. The first whiplike part is uttered by the male, and the two short notes at the end are the female's answer. There is also a little muttering chatter they make in between songs, which I find particularly attractive: "I'm right here", it says. "Are you still there, too?"

Another regular visitor is the large white-headed pigeon. I sometimes worry about the chains that support this birdfeeder when several of these fat beauties land there at once. Their size may have made them a target for hunters in earllier times, but they don't seem to be bullies. Often I see one or two of them waiting in overhead trees while the boisterious rainbow lorikeets eat their fill. And as soon as I approach with a camera, off they go, in a great flutter of their large wings.

I wouldn't be sad if this next visitor turned his back and abandoned our garden for good. He's the native turkey, and I'm sure he has a role to play in the Australian bush. But he's not very welcome in most backyards and gardens – even those based on native plants. And you can't see it here, but he has great big feet that can rake up a cubic metre of mulch in one afternoon, or tip over and break a big ceramic feeder. Once you've allowed a male turkey to build his massive nest in your yard, as we have, the measures you'll have to adopt to discourage him from coming back to the same place every year are all illegal.

Equally messy visitors, but somehow more acceptable, are little pairs of wood duck that adopt our back verandah every now and then for a week or two at a time. One year a pair built a nest under a bush alongside the swimming pool, but something, probably a monitor lizard, got the eggs. I try not to encourage the ducks because their bathroom manners are atrocious. But while she lived with us for a year, Mum was very fond of them. She would sit out every day with her little pot of grain, waiting for them to call by for a snack. I think they still come looking for her.

Mulch good enough to eat

It's Friday and the kiddos arrive this evening for the weekend. That's always good motivation to finish up a few tidying tasks that have lingered on through the week.

First, there's half a trailer-load of 'hoop fines' mulch to be spread. It should be just enough to finish the second terrace on the northern side of the house. The top terrace contains my prolific lime tree and some gardenias as well as my faithful old rosemary. The second terrace has bird-attracting native shrubs. I've checked a few websites and it seems that with the addition of blood and bone, hoop fines should be fine around all of those.

In fact, this is not the mulch I planned to buy when I went down to Doonan Sand and Gravel last weekend. I went looking for curly hoop to top up a rather steep bank alongside the road, where I renew the mulch around my lilly pillys every year or two. Curly hoop lasts longer and keeps the weeds down OK. It also sits well on sloping sites because the pieces of bark intertwine and 'stay put'. Doonan didn't have the exact type of mulch I wanted, but a 1-inch hoop seemed OK for the same purpose (why do we persist in measuring our mulch in inches when we've been metric for 40 years?)

Unfortunately the hoop-fines bin was right alongside the bin containing 1-inch hoop. So when I went into the office and asked the lovely lady there to load up my trailer, I may have said only 'hoop'. She sent her obliging son off to do that. She and I chatted on for a while about how nice it is to have obliging children around! And by the time I got back to the trailer, it was already half full of hoop fines, not 1-inch hoop! Her obliging son and I discussed how best to start over (emptying a trailer is a lot slower than loading it!) But then I realised my level front terraces could use the extra lift provided by a richer mulch, so I bought the 'fines' after all. And I'll go back for the 1-inch hoop as soon as the trailer's empty. The mistake was as much my fault as their's, so they really needn't have given me a discount! But my! my! what a lovely mix this is: reminds me of a chocolate-coloured shredded wheat! Don't you just love much!

Back on (blog) track

I'm back! Of course, I've been here all along. We both have – A and me! But we've been engaged in a furious round of medical and allied health appointments, as well as participating in two different sets of aphasia clinics, each lasting several months – one in Brisbane (therefore that's a whole day's commitment each time) and one closer to home on the Sunshine Coast. Then A began a series of weekly physiotherapy sessions at the rehab hospital where he was a patient following his hospitalisation in 2009. What with running around to all these places and helping A in the routine tasks of daily living that he hasn't been able to do without aid since he fractured his shoulder in a fall in late March, I have been just too busy to spend much time here on blogging.

We are still seeing various doctors about a problem with A's kidneys, a condition probably exacerbated by all the antibiotics that were required to save his life from that terrible post-surgical bone infection. He may need a minor surgical procedure to insert a stint into one kidney to alleviate that problem, but I'm assured this is a minor procedure, one I hope will require only local anaesthetic.

So things are getting back to 'normal', or what we've now come to accept as normal. A's shoulder bone is finally healing – though we had a big scare after two months when one doctor suggested the fracture wasn't healing and so might need some kind of surgical intervention. But a specialist bone doctor put our fears to rest, saying he could definitely see new bone forming. And now we can see evidence ourselves that the shoulder is getting better.

This morning I heard a yelp from the kitchen, where A was busy unloading the dishwasher (that in itself another sign he's getting better!) I was briefly afraid he'd done some damage or fallen again. But it turned out this was a yelp of joy, because he'd just been able for the first time since his fall to raise his arm high enough to hang up the pots from last night's dinner!

This week is the first week in months that we are able to spend almost every day at home. All we have is one doctor's appointment and one physiotherapy session. Oh, and a Film Society screening on Wednesday evening (The Eclipse). As a result, I've been able to spend the first two days of this week in the garden. From just one small section of garden bed on a terrace above the swimming pool, I've cut out a whole trailer-load of a terrible new vine-like weed that has sprung up in the past year (don't know the name, but it has awful bean-like fruits so will probably sprout again; I will need to be vigilant). A has spent the first two mornings of the week at his new pastime – drawing. We are retired, at last!

Incidentally, doesn't our new pergola look great? Can you imagine any better use of the top of a 40,000 litre rainwater tank? Now watch this space and soon you'll see a few other scenes from my newly weeded garden!

A final goodbye to our mother

This Mother's Day weekend, our family and friends in Massachusetts celebrated our mother's long life in a memorial service organised and hosted by our brother P. Mom died and was cremated in January of this year, and you can read her obituary in an earlier post. But as often happens these days with New England funerals, the memorial service was postponed until Spring.

The morning began with a service of thanksgiving and remembrance at the Daniel Morril Funeral Home in our home town. It was presided over by Father John Pastor, who had often visited Mom in her final years at Radius Nursing Home. Fr Pastor noted with amusement that Mom told him straight out at their first meeting that she wasn't very religious. But he was pleased to officiate, and I'm told he did a wonderful job!

More than 35 members of our extended family and friends-of-family attended, including, of course, sister D and her three beautiful daughters (see Those gorgeous 'Benoit' girls), who flew up from from Louisiana for the weekend. Numerous cousins and their families – some of the countless sons and daughters of Mom and Dad's 16 brothers and sisters – also attended.

Our brother had prepared a slide show featuring photos from Mom's long life. This was projected on a large-screen television for guests to view as they arrived. And to introduce the service, D had selected In my life, a song from Mom's all-time favourite group, the Beatles.

After the service, everyone drove from the funeral home to a chapel at a nearby country cemetery. There Mom's ashes were laid to rest alongside our father's on an idyllic hillside location our parents had selected many years ago. Then everyone retired to Cohasse Country Club for a sumptuous buffet lunch hosted by our brother, and peppered by lots of remembrances and laughs, as well as tears. Dad's 92-year-old sister happily took the role of distinguished elder during the lunch. She and the other guests reminisced and shared a fund of amusing stories from our parents' long and happy lives. (Mom was 88 years old when she died; Dad was 86.)

Unfortunately, my sister and I and our two daughters here in Australia were not able to travel to the USA for the weekend. So each of us had written a brief letter to our mother/grandmother, and these were read out during the service.

My niece in Tasmania sent a poem

For reasons of copyright, I'm not able to reproduce Granddaughter A's thoughtful offering for the service: The Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. (In a quirk of fate, Fr Pastor had selected that same poem as one of his readings.) Along with the poem, A sent this note to our brother and sister there in Massachusetts: "I send it to you with lots of love, and warm thoughts of Granny. Think of it as an electronic hug, and may all the birds in all the poems sing and fly for Granny." The beautiful poem was a perfect choice, though A may not have known that the annual migration of Canadian geese in the skies over their New England home was something our parents looked forward to every year.

My daughter sent the following letter to her grandmother:

DEAREST GRANMA,

I’m not really good at thinking of things to say in these types of situations – I’ve only ever been to one funeral in my entire life. So I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to say now except to let you know B and I are both relieved you are finally comfortable with Grandpa. I’m sure you’re indulging in all the things you like – donuts, hotdogs and baked beans; Johnny Cash music; house-coats; yodelling; scratch lotto tickets; sewing, knitting and crocheting; all while watching Mash re-runs or listening to talk-back radio.

I’m not lucky enough to have many memories of you as I have spent the vast majority of my life living away from most of my family – I never really knew you the way Mum did. But my earliest memory of anything at all is one that involves you. I was sitting in your kitchen in a highchair eating baked beans! The other memory I have was the time you were thrilled that, when pushing your dining chair back under the table, I matched up the chair legs to the existing indentations in the carpet without being asked. Our appreciation of each other grew a little more that day, I suspect.

Rest soundly now in the arms of Grandpa and be safe in the knowledge that quite a number of your habits and fancies are genetically safe with me :-)

All my love......Z

My sister in Tasmania sent this lovely tribute:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF MY MOTHER:

Crocheting still reminds me of you, Mom, more than almost anything else. And I'm never happier than when adding row upon row of geometric stitches, reminding me of simpler times gone by. Of course, I also fondly remember your knitting, your patchwork, your sewing, your love of music, your love of the sun, our laughing sessions...but I feel your warmth and closeness most when I am crocheting, using stitches you first taught me all those years ago. I'd have loved to share this new afghan stitch with you. So I'll do it now...

Loving you always.....N

And here is my final letter to my mother:

 

DEAREST MOM

The only thing that helps me to bear your loss, Mom, is the thought of how certain you were of seeing Dad again in heaven – how much you looked forward to that, and how you believed you would actually SEE him, too, with your own eyes.

Losing your sight was such a cruel blow, after a lifetime spent making beautiful things and creating a wonderful home for all of us. I don’t know how you coped with that loss, and still managed to care for Dad at home when you were already legally blind yourself and physically disabled from arthritis and other problems. I admired you then so much. But only in the past year, with all that has happened to my own husband, have I had some inkling of what you must have gone through in Dad’s final years, and how hard that would have been.

I can only wonder in awe at your strength, your toughness and your love. We all benefited from those qualities, Mom, and that’s a legacy that will live on in the lives of your lucky children, your beautiful granddaughters and your great-grandchildren.

I miss you so much, but we give thanks today for your life and for all that you and Dad gave us. Rest in peace, my dearest. No one deserves eternal happiness more than you. 

Taking a break

I am on a brief break from blogging. Back soon. Meanwhile, these visitors to my backyard today joined a pair of king parrots (who wouldn't let me get near enough to photograph) in helping lift my dwindling spirits.

Sunshine Coast aphasia clinic – at last!

Off to Maroochydore this morning for the second in a series of eight Adult Communication Group workshops in Maroochydore. This clinic, specifically designed for aphasia sufferers and their partners, is a welcome and long-awaited regional initiative of the Queensland Department of Health.

The program has been developed by four speech pathologists based at various locations on the Sunshine Coast. Three of them are Interagency Speech Pathologists with Queensland Health and the fourth is from Eden Rehabilitation Hospital in Cooroy. Working in pairs, the four speech pathologists take turns organising and facilitating these weekly two-hour sessions, which are held in a meeting room of the Maroochydore Library.

Last week was our first session. Eight couples are participating. Most of the partners with aphasia have had a stroke which has caused their brain damage, but at least one person has aphasia as a result of a brain injury that damaged the language-generating areas of his brain. A seems to be the only person who has primary progressive aphasia. But all of us are living with aphasia, and it’s a lively and interesting group, with a wider age range than most groups we’ve participated in.

Some of the carers are very articulate, too, and frustrated by the fact that for most of them this is the first time they have had access to any group specifically designed for aphasia sufferers and their partners. Some said they and their partners had come all the way through the post-stroke hospital experience without ever hearing the term ‘aphasia’ used, without having their specific communication problems analysed and without being prescribed appropriate therapies to address their communication difficulties.

I think we will enjoy these clinics. And if the first two sessions are anything to go by, the sessions will be very well organised, too. The presenters prepare relevant and interesting activities and the handouts they distribute include visual clues as well as text. This shows their awareness that some people with aphasia can’t make much sense of written language.

Such is the case with at least one participant in this clinic, for example, whose command of oral language seems almost fluent by comparison with A’s. Yet he said he has difficulty making sense of written language. A, on the other hand, often has great difficulty speaking in even simple sentences, but he can read at almost his pre-aphasia level. Welcome to the Planet Aphasia**, where we all must now live.

In today’s session, we learned more about each of the couples – especially the partners who have aphasia. Each of them had to bring in an item to demonstrate an interest or activity that is or was important in their life. A brought in a couple of his scrapbooks containing clippings, theatre programs and other memorabilia documenting his 50+ years working in Australian theatre.

One man from France, married to a local woman, has lost most of his second language (English) as the result of his stroke, as well as having difficulties with his native French. He brought along a variety of small percussion instruments and led us all in ‘playing’ and singing several rounds of Frère Jacques (his name), which he himself could sing without hesitation – a phenomenon shared by A, who sings along on most days to familiar songs he has copied onto his computer specifically for this purpose.

Another participant brought in a selection of beautiful tropical flowers that he and his wife grow on their seven-acre property in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. One flower was a gorgeous tiger-striped orchid which trailed numerous thin tendrils some 10 cm long. He didn’t know the name of it but we took a photo which someone will try to identify.

One man showed photos of the pizza oven he had built in his backyard. He explained that he made pizzas for friends and family there, but for himself he mainly used the oven to prepare a classic Italian treat: slices of oven-dried pork, the exact name of which I can’t recall though when he said it I remembered having seen this in a delicatessen’s smallgoods section.

Everyone’s ‘object’ provoked good discussion, which was the main aim of the activity. And each week the organisers appoint one participant as timekeeper, whose job it is to make sure no segment of the agenda goes over time. That meant we had time left for each of our partners to mime or draw a given phrase which the rest of us had to guess – what we called our Spics ‘n Specs segment. Another volunteer makes brief notes of each week’s session and prepares minutes – no small task for anyone with aphasia who might take hours to write even a short paragraph.

What with morning tea and lots of chit-chat, the two hours fly by. I can’t help noticing how ‘at home’ I feel with these Sunshine Coast couples, too. Many of them live or have lived, like us, in semi-rural situations. And perhaps for that reason, this clinic has a different atmosphere to that of the clinic we attend in Brisbane. I don’t mean to imply the Brisbane clinic isn’t very good; it is. But not surprisingly, in Brisbane I always feel a little ‘at sea’, as we live a different kind of life up here on the Sunshine Coast than most of the people who attend that clinic. And whenever I go to the city for any reason, I tend to feel a little exotic. People there are friendly enough, but A and I have a different set of references, it seems. Up here on the Coast, however, we ‘fit in’ more easily. Maybe that’s more important to me, as a carer who needs to connect with others. But it’s a comfortable feeling of belonging. And with loneliness a hallmark of being a full-time caregiver, ‘belonging’ is no small feat.

Whatever the reason, we are delighted to finally be meeting a group of people from our region who, like us, have to learn to live with aphasia.

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** From the Planet Aphasia is the title of an excellent blog by the American carer of a partner who has profound aphasia and apraxia. Check it out; it’s well worth a read!

And it’s only Monday!

This morning I took A to the dentist for the first of several visits to have a tedious 'root canal' job ("...a dental procedure that replaces a tooth’s damaged or infected pulp with a filling. The pulp consists of specialised dental cells, blood vessels, tissue fibres and some nerve fibres located in the hollow space in the central part of the tooth..." – that’s a quote from the Better Health Channel, a useful Victorian government website providing health and medical information).

Background: We have just finished dinner last Tuesday in front of TV – A in his Superman chair, so called because it flies him up into the air at the push of a button. (Since I bought him a great little adjustable tilt-table on lockable wheels to use with this chair, the electrically operated recliner has functioned as sometimes-desk chair, hobby chair and dining chair, as well as TV chair and frequent site of daytime naps.) I forget what was on the menu on this night – lamb chops, I think.

As I am clearing away the plates in a bit of a rush, keen to be ready for Foreign Correspondent, A pipes up with: "I think I lost a tooth". I immediately think to myself: "Oh no, one must have fallen off his partial plate. Did he swallow it?" But he removes his plate (bottom jaw) and smiles at me. And no, it's not a bottom tooth that's missing; it's one of the two front teeth in the upper jaw! If I remember correctly, that not really HIS tooth either, but an expensive 'cap' attached to a tooth fragment. So where is the cap? And can it be re-attached?

After a frantic search through table scraps, I finally locate the gleaming little metal-backed porcelain curio. On closer inspection, I see that the cap must have been attached to the tiniest fragment of original tooth, which has now completely snapped off. Not surprising, really, given all the pushing, tugging and tubing that A's jaws were exposed to last year before the decision was made to do a tracheotomy at the end of his first week in hospital.

First thing last Wednesday morning, I ring the dentist’s office. They kindly agree to fit us in at about midday, to see what can be done. But there’s a hitch: we have long ago scheduled A’s Extended Primary Care review with the specialist nurse at our doctor’s office for this Wednesday morning. She only takes these appointments on Wednesdays, and this is our only available Wednesday. Every other Wednesday, we travel to Brisbane for A’s speech therapy clinic at the university. But this Wednesday there’s no Brisbane clinic due to uni holidays. So we can’t reschedule the EPC review. We will just have to rush from there to the dentist – about half an hour’s drive away.

And there's another complication. Wednesday is also the last day of grandson Sam’s one-week stay, and we have promised to take him to a movie in the afternoon. Never mind. The dentist should fit in between the EPC appointment and the movie, with enough time before the movie to grab some lunch somewhere. (Wise old grandma knows better than to go to the cinema with a hungry 12-year-old. The $12 we gave Sam for his movie-time ‘snacks’ would never be enough to fill him up without some lunch beforehand.) The three locations (doctor’s and dentist’s offices and cinema) are all in different towns spread out like points on a ribbon here in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. We will have to move quickly all day (not something A is very good at!)

Fortunately, it all goes like clockwork – greatly helped by Grandson Sam’s good nature and patience, even though the book he’s currently devouring got left at home during our hurried departure on Wednesday morning. But his Nintendo DS Lite made it into my bag, so he spends the waiting time at the doctor’s office happily enough, training his pet Nintendo dog to obey and do tricks. (See any transferable skills there? Oh well, it is school holidays.) Then the dentist’s receptionist lets him choose which TV station to watch in her waiting room.

The dentist manages to ‘bond’ A’s cap back in place with some kind of (we assume) non-poisonous cement! But she isn’t too optimistic about the chances of success. She warns me to watch carefully to make sure A doesn’t swallow the cap if it detaches again. At first I think she is concerned for the damage this might do to A's gastro-intestinal tract. Then I realise she is only suggesting that a swallowed cap will make a very expensive meal, because if this bonding doesn’t work, then a ‘root canal’ procedure, to dig out the remains of the tooth and replace it with a ‘post’, will be the only option. And that will all go much easier (and cheaper!) if we haven’t lost the cap, which can be re-jigged to fit over the post. (Is she suggesting I might somehow want to retrieve a swallowed cap a day or so later?????? Really, there are limits to a carer’s devotion!)

After a quick lunch at our favourite noodle bar (Sam bringing in a sausage roll from next door), we arrive at the cinema just in time to get priority seating before the doors actually open to the public – thanks to Granpa’s tottering status when surrounded by ankle-biters. Sam is very impressed by this, as we get to choose whatever seats we want. By the end of the day, though, we have been going non-stop for seven hours. Even allowing for the time A slept during the movie, we are all pretty tired by the time we get home.

Next day, Thursday, is Blue Care day, in which one of several different angels comes and spends four hours with A while I go off and ‘do my thing’, whatever that may be. In the first months after A’s hospitalisation, I would have to run around doing all the week’s errands, including groceries, as this was my only time away from home. But now A happily accompanies me on all such errands, provided I slow to a snail’s pace or, sometimes, ‘borrow’ one of the shopping centre’s disability go-karts (which he loves). So now during A's carer visit, I am free to entertain myself however I see fit for these four hours each week. At first, without a plan and unused to this freedom, I would drive around aimlessly, unable to decide how best to spend these sacred few hours. Now that I’m better organised, I usually go to a favourite nursery and browse the plants, maybe buying, maybe not – it doesn’t really matter. Very occasionally, I have lunch with a friend. Other times, I just walk by the river or in the National Park. It’s all good medicine.

On this Thursday, though, I am supposed to meet Sam’s ‘real’ paternal grandma (he has quite a few step-grandmas like me!) a half hour down the highway, where we will effect the grandson handover and have a quick coffee! That doesn’t quite go to plan, however, since my Blue Care angel doesn’t arrive until 15 minutes after the time scheduled for my highway rendezvous with Sam's other grandma. Thank god for mobile phones (how did we ever manage get-togethers without them?) The meeting place is quickly changed, with Grandma Grace (GG, as she’s known) offering to drive further in my direction. So I finally hand over the red-headed package safely, GG treats Sam and me to some lunch, and I head off with enough time remaining for me to call into my favourite nursery, Fairhill Native Plants, on the way home. (You can see one outcome of that day's purchases in another recent post.)

Arriving back home on Thursday after my time-off-for-good-behaviour, I walk in the door to A’s big smile, a gap showing where the top front tooth should be! Luckily, our Blue Care angel has retrieved the cap, which hadn’t survived the chicken sandwich, let alone the apple that followed. Obviously the repair was doomed. The next morning, after a couple of phone conversations with the dentist’s receptionist and A’s assurances that he is OK to manage the long sessions in the chair that will be required, we get two appointments this week for the invasive drilling and fitting that, we hope, will re-anchor that salvaged cap into the top jaw 'till death do us (or it) part'.

And the result today: Here we are this morning at the dentist's again. A is just settling into the chair when the dentist asks: “Is he on any blood pressure tablets?” My god, I realise, I don’t really know what two of his five daily tablets are for. (Caregiver-guilt strikes again!) I ring our doctor. The dentist holds the needle in her hand, poised to inject, but our doctor is on the phone to someone else. Minutes (it seems longer) go by. Finally I get the doctor's answer: Yes, one of those tablets is a blood pressure tablet. No problem, says the dentist, as she quickly changes to a different drug, one without adrenaline, which is OK to use with someone taking blood pressure tablets. But then the doctor, still on the phone, asks to speak to the dentist. ‘Has A had his antibiotics first?’ It seems that after mitral valve repairs, anyone undergoing an invasive dental procedure should begin a course of antibiotics at least an hour beforehand to minimise the likelihood of an infection which could make its way to the heart.

I should know this from my experience years ago taking my elderly mother to the dentist. She had the same problem but hated taking pills so much, she eventually stopped going to the dentist just so she wouldn't need to take antibiotics! I had even thought of phoning the doctor early this morning to check that very thing. But I rationalised that surely someone would have told us this at the time of the operation, or at the time of dismissal from the hospital. Did we ever get a list of do’s and don’ts after heart surgery? I guess we probably did. But A's massive post-operative complications overshadowed all the usual cardiac-related warnings we might have paid more attention to otherwise. Anyway, his supervising doctor in hospital never expected A to be able to come home, let alone undergo major dental work.

Well A got his antibiotics (probably not quite an hour before, but fingers crossed!) and I’ve added another no-no to the growing list of warnings in my caregiver’s survival manual. At the end of the week, we go back to the dentist for the rest of the procedure. Here’s hoping it goes too smoothly to warrant another post, except for before and after pictures.

Kangaroo paws

Just finished planting out kangaroo paws (Anigozanthos) along the top edge of the in-ground water tank - a good spot in full sun which is neither too wet nor too dry.

The two plants in the middle of the photo are Bush Pizzazz (deep magenta flowers) and the plant on the right is Bush Elegance (deep burgundy flowers on a plant that should be slightly smaller in overall size when mature). I also planted a fourth Bush Elegance across the rocky path, just out of view off the top right-hand corner of the photo. The last of this season's sage plants along the edge of the water tank are just about finished, but the compost I put into the holes for the kangaroo paw may give the sage one last flourish.

Back to school for Sam

Sadly, grandson Sam went home today. But we had happy times during his week-long visit – including our Valley Rattler excursion described in an earlier post and yesterday's trip to the cinema to see How to Train your Dragon, in 3-D no less. (In spite of a booming soundtrack, Granpa managed to sleep through a good part of the movie.)

Sam found lots to do at home, too. On this visit, he only managed to fit in one long swim. He usually spends hours in the pool every day when he visits, but this time we were so busy and on some days the temperature was a bit too cool to be tempting. Even so, he got in a good few hours while I weeded a garden bed alongside the pool.

 

On our last evening before Sam's departure, we drove down to an off-the-track part of Doonan for a bit of roo-spotting, along roads that have never before failed to yield a good number of wallabies feeding at dusk.

Unfortunately, this time we didn't see a single wallaby, though we did come face to face with a small group of beautiful young bulls calmly feeding. Sam tried to photograph them, but managed to get only one rump. He did get some lovely shots of a beautiful sunset, however, including this one of a truly spectacular cloud formation.

The Valley Rattler

Grandson Sam, Granpa A and I spent Easter Sunday riding the Mary Valley Heritage Railway from Gympie to Imbil and back, on a beautiful steam train known as the Valley Rattler.

The heritage railway has operated this colourful old steam locomotive pulling half a dozen authentic carriages as a delightful tourism initiative since 1998. The train takes up to 480 passengers per trip on a return journey from the old Gympie Railway Station (Queensland) to the inland town of Imbil several times a week. The outbound trip takes two hours and then there's a two-hour layover at Imbil. Here passengers can lunch at one of several cafes or pubs. Or by arrangement, the railway will provide box lunches that are collected on arrival at Imbil. Some people on our train brought picnics and there was plenty of space for casual dining around the Imbil station grounds.

Imbil was positively bustling. A small market offering local produce and other market-type attractions is set up along the historic main street, which still contains many of the original old buildings now turned into modest cafes and shops. After lunch and some shopping, passengers re-board for the return trip and another two hours of very pleasant sightseeing.

The train travels through picturesque bush and farming country in the iconic Mary River valley, crossing the Mary and several other rivers and creeks on the way. We stopped once on the outbound trip – at Kandanga – and once on the return trip – at Dagun – where we were able to sample and buy various local wares and refreshments in mini-markets set up specially for our benefit in and around the original station buildings in each place. A wine and cheese tasting was the highlight of the Dagun stop on the way back.

From the moment of boarding at 9.45 am until our return to Gympie at 4 pm, Sam had a great time, and so did we. Our beautifully wood-panelled car (Car 'C' No. 1038) was built in 1923 at Ipswich. It was originally a 1st class car that had been converted to 2nd class in 1984. Even though we hadn't paid top dollar for a seat in a 'club car' (the cost for the three of us was just over $100 plus lunch), it seemed to me as I walked through the other cars in the course of embarking and disembarking at various stations that ours had the most sumptuous and comfortable seats on the train. Maybe that was because we booked well in advance. (The train was just about sold out, I believe, and advance booking is a must.) We shared our little cabin with another threesome who were great company. And the long, well-sprung upholstered bench-type seats on both sides of the cabin could easily have accommodated another person each, so the six of us had plenty of space to spread out.

Some of the platforms presented a challenge to A, as there were no modern facilities such as ramps or lifts. Instead, sets of metal stairs without handrails were lifted into position at each stop. But there were always offers of assistance from staff and other passengers. Even so, Allen chose to sit out the last stop with one of his puzzles, while I ferried him samples of the wine and cheese on offer. It had been a long day, after all.

What the train lacked in modern amenities (I will spare you a description of the loo facilities) was more than outweighed by the very friendly and helpful staff, all of whom were in period costume and used equipment and tickets faithful to the early days of train travel in Queensland. I'm not sure but I think some of the staff are volunteers, too. And a few were what is sometimes referred to as 'disabled', but that label certainly isn't appropriate to describe the standard of their very capable service. So it wasn't only the facilities that were 'old-fashioned'; the service was the same – old-fashioned in the best possible sense. 

A small setback

Well  here it is 10.30 am and all three of us (the two wrinklies plus grandson) are showered, breakfasted and each at our screens. It's incredible how long it takes A and me to get organised in the morning since he fractured his clavicle (that's shoulder, for the anatomy-challenged among you!) This happened about nine days ago while A was maneuvering himself into position to begin an exercise routine. He had been doing his daily exercises independently for a while, but on this day he lost his balance somehow and toppled over, head and arm striking the edge of a bookcase or chair as he crashed down heavily onto the tile floor.

I came running when I heard the yell. Just getting him up was a challenge, but then I remembered that velcro-fastened cummerbund thing with 'grab' handles that we'd bought for his first weeks out of hospital. So after wrapping that belt around him, I managed to haul him up into a chair. At first I was most worried about the amount of blood splashed around, which seemed to be coming from a wound at the top of his head. But after checking him all over I realised some of the blood was from grazed skin near the left elbow.

Our Blue Care helper arrived just about then, and together we cleaned up A's injuries, which proved to be just flaps of skin rubbed off and no serious cuts. I was particularly impressed with the arrow our helper drew on the waterproof dressings, after we had applied these to the grazed skin areas. The arrow showed the direction in which to rip off each bandage later without pulling against the direction of the loose skin flap underneath. Even our doctor was impressed with that when we brought A in the next day to sort out why the shoulder was so sore and swollen.

X-rays showed a possible new fracture to the clavicle on top of an old one from A's youth, when he'd fallen off a bicycle. Swelling and soreness since then have confirmed this, so A must wear a sling for the next month or so, and has to do everything one-armed – which has greatly reduced his sense of independence, and also his confidence. But it's not too serious an injury, and has served to remind us of a big danger for someone of A's condition at this stage of life: injury from falls. We must be more careful in future.

Easter weekend with Sam

Our Easter weekend with grandson Sam has begun. Grandma Grace drove him up late this morning, and after lunch we got busy in the kitchen. Sam made a batch of chocolate crackles (lovely, they are, too!)

After lunch, Sam helped to trim a small hedge of alternanthera in the back yard. Then he helped his Granpa to do a few puzzles -- which they completed successfully (of course).

While dinner was cooking, Sam and Grandma worked on their computers in the studio. Sam's favourite game today was a game called bike champ (motor bikes not push bikes). Level 27 was the hardest. Afterwards we watched game videos on youtube on the computer Sam was using.

Three blind mice

Three blind mice, three blind mice....

See how they run, see how they run.....

Oh how I miss that dear old python who once lived 'upstairs'. While he boarded with us, we never had to worry about families like this one caught trying to sneak into the house. And I never had to run around catching mice by the tail (or trying to).