It's 5.15 as I type this, and the sky is as dark as night can make it. The only light comes from the odd shooting star - a firework goes up, not very high, on Bonfire Night.
Some of those low-flying bombs could do with a boost.
This isn't about attending appointments in darkness. It's about keeping appointments as the weather turns against your best plans. The best plan is to have a plan that deals with things turning against your best plans...including against the best plan to have best plans in the first place.
Autumn/Winter brings special challenges to dementia care. Flu is a problem, and arranging a visit to pick up that flu injection is a struggle. Not much of a struggle. The struggle of getting on the bus and going.
I'm up at 7.00 to make sure everything runs smoothly for an injection that takes place more than three hours later. It all runs smoothly. There's a handy pile of winter gear set out to keep the autumn chill off elderly bones.
Our autumn is an older generation's winter. People who work in caring, nursing, making home visits, know that the elderly like the heat. Volcanic heat. On the mildest days. Organisations do what they can to assist the elderly in dealing with winter...
I sign up to the scheme that hands out a winter discount. Government winter fuel payments kick in on top of that. The house was insulated long ago. Insulation is available if the property was overlooked, back in the day.
Extreme age cools the bones, and, sometimes, freezes the mind.
And so...
There's a handy stack of winter clothes for an autumn day. While my back is turned, there's a clanging. I am informed that the chair was moved. The chair isn't metallic, and hasn't shifted. I discover the beginning of that story as I run a last check on getting ready to leave.
For some locations, the wheelchair is easier to make use of. It's been moved out of the cupboard and back in - so it didn't seem to have moved anywhere, either.
All these chairs, not moving. Clanging. But not moving. Why did the cared-for move the wheelchair, to the puzzlement of the carer?
She wouldn't remember to attend the flu clinic. But she sure-as-fuck remembers to drag a long-forgotten coat out of the depths. I depthed it, and for good reason. That coat has no zips on the pockets. It's good for a trip, but not for a bus-trip.
She has the exact coat to hand, set out for her, with zips. The bus pass won't get lost. But no, that's too easy. Wrestle with a wheelchair, rummage for an inappropriate coat, and risk losing the plastic card that's a ticket to free travel.
I carry cash to pay for the trip if the card is lost. But the hassle of replacing the card is...hassle. The warmer coat, with its deeper pockets and protective zips, is part of my plan.
Autumn has an atmosphere to it that makes it a great time of year. But the weather can throw things off. Rain delays traffic. Take an earlier bus. Walk more carefully over rain-slickened streets. Avoid skidding on slippery leaves.
I fix the coat situation by switching coats around. This time, I depth-charge the inappropriate coat. Of all the things to remember. Damn.
So much can go wrong on a bus, when you can't concentrate. Things run smoothly. The vaccination takes longer to talk about than to observe. We are back out, heading for the next bus. Traffic takes longer to skid to a halt in rain. Careful, with those roads. Never fully trust pedestrian crossings. They interact with drivers, and drivers are unpredictable.
What goes wrong on the return? I'm concentrating so much on the final stretch, that I delay standing to get off the bus. It's okay. If I stand too early, carer is followed by cared-for...risking falling over as the bus is in motion.
This blog post is about nothing happening on a trip to a clinic. Nothing happened because I prepared the shit out of the business the night before, setting my alarm for 7.00. Even so, at the last gasp, on the day itself, coats shuffled and chairs mysteriously didn't move. I managed.
It's autumn/winter that feels great. And it's autumn/winter that makes things difficult. Always take something as simple as a simple trip seriously. Every journey at this end of the year is a moon-landing, a trip up Everest without oxygen, an adventure to the far side of the globe...the globe in question being Mars.
End of tale. We went to town, and observed the clinic in action. For the benefit of the elderly (almost all attendees), the clinic took place downstairs. Beneficial clinics are grim affairs if the trip upstairs lands you in the hospital with a broken limb or three.
This is the reality of care. A rainy day in town turns into a major event. At least the atmosphere is vivid. Autumn always has that in its favour.
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