DEMENTIA CARE: THE IMPORTANCE OF CLUTTER.

Rules to live by?
   Sounds like a good idea.
   It is winter. The place is cluttered. Some things are moved out of the way, and that means they’ve been moved into the way of other things. There are two repairs due to windows in separate rooms.
   The waiting-list was a month-long. Then, after the initial appraisal of the situation, the work had to be handed to another department. Another month of waiting. Not a problem. The seals inside the windows both failed. But not to the extent that the cold wind doth blow right into the house.
   These are problems that will develop into real problems later. But they’ll be fixed now. Covid created the extra wait. That’s all. HOWEVER, to give access to those windows…things get moved out of the way.
   Bulky furniture has to go. That’s all in a queue, as well. Even just throwing it out, earmarking it all for the dump, would put the furniture in a queue. But this is a different queue. A better queue.
   If the furniture can be refurbished, it’ll go to a recycling centre that sells the material on at a discount to people who really need it but who can’t afford the full-priced stuff. This pleases the cared-for. She might not know what day of the week it is, but she can recognise a good deed from a mile away.
   I think we’d all struggle to calculate how far a mile away is, but that’s a distance thing and not a dementia thing. Anyway…if I’d thrown the furniture out, it would almost certainly be gone by now. Trying to give it away responsibly is taking a little longer.
   More clutter.
   Soon the Christmas tree comes down, and the main room will feel less cluttered as a result. The cupboard housing the dismantled tree needs a spot of reorganisation. And the kitchen is in a hell of a state…
   I’ve reorganised the kitchen into a ship’s galley, of sorts, packed with things that have to go. When they go, there’ll be room for a new fridge. A second fridge. Smaller. We’ll have the space for it when we have the space for it. I’ll need to buy an extension lead.
   The one weakness in the system is the lack of a fridge if the fridge stops working. A fridge is almost impossible to replace instantly. It’s only with recent reorganisation that I could consider fitting a second fridge in the kitchen.
   There’s no space to place a fridge in another location. Winter sees the fridge/freezer filled to capacity. It is important to keep the milk supply safe. Safe is good. Supply is also good. With availability of strawberry milk being patchy, I must create a milk reserve…
   And that’s been tricky with all the other things I’ve had to pack into the fridge over the winter. I need to ease up on what’s stored in there. There’s little point in having a reserve supply of milk, an emergency stash, if there’s no working fridge there.
   So a new fridge, a spare, is on the agenda. Once the furniture goes. I am gradually changing what’s stored in the loft. Making space for things by removing clutter. Yes, I remove clutter to make room for new clutter. It’s the only way to fly.
   What’s the plan? Put the Christmas tree away, and give the illusion of more space for the workman to operate in when he comes to fix the window. Unclutter the kitchen for the same window-based reason. Ditch the furniture. Send it to live on somewhere, like a gathering of donated wooden kidneys.
   Empty and fill the loft. Fill it better. Make the clutter up there leaner. Clutter in the kitchen makes the kitchen leaner. Kitchen clutter doesn’t risk falling through to a lower level. The loft isn’t that bad, but I’m not here to take the risk.
   Having clutter fall from the loft into a lower area already packed with clutter is a nightmare prospect that could see both levels of clutter fall through to the bottom of the building. That would put a dampener on preparing meals. And we can’t have that.
   This is not spring. And it isn’t cleaning. It is the rationing of crap into bite-sized chunks that’ll go to the bins. What can be recycled? And what should be dumped? When the dust settles, I’ll have a vague idea of what must be bought in.
   Out. Cardboard boxes for appliances that no longer apply. The guarantee is long-gone. In the case of one appliance, the appliance was gone. Much to recycle, on the cardboard front.
   Also out. The furniture that’s surplus to requirements. If it can’t be refurbished, it’ll have to be dumped. That means joining another queue.
   Appliances that need replacing. No, I’ve pretty much taken care of that category. I instituted changes to electrical goods where required. If I replace something now, it might be the television in the main room. But that’s not essential.
   A few items from stores should return to stores. An ill-advised delivery of a piece of mobility equipment was easy to deal with in reverse. Carers always seem to know the wee guy from stores.
   Sooner or later I’ll be back into the replacement game when it comes to fire alarms. They beep every Monday when I test them. Apart from the very latest one, which tells me, in a spooky voice, that there’s a fire or carbon monoxide in the air.
   That still takes a bit of getting used to. Hire someone to generate the most robotic neutral warning you can imagine. Those alarms should be SCOTTISH AS FUCK when giving out their warnings.
   Haow! ’Er’s a fiyurrr! Get tae France, maaan! Did ye no’ hear me rah furst time, ya numptie?! Get oot. Nae time furra chinwag. Sky rah pitch!
   Obviously, with a klaxon chiming in as that warning blares oot.
   Everything is Scoattish in the caring world. The wee army o’ daily carers. A gallus wee guy frae stores. A’ problems are wee problems. Proablems, ah meant tae say. Prescription labels aren’t Scottish. Wan, fower times a day. I think that’s a good thing. A guid thing.
   I was thinking of fire alarms as it is Monday. That’s when I test them. Or. Testing them tells me it is a Monday. There. I’ve managed to keep all but one of the rooms free enough of clutter to reach the fire alarms easily. Currently, I have to squeeze past the legs of an upturned table to test the one that’s hard to reach.
   That’s okay. If the alarm goes off in there, I’ll be out here following the drill. You move away from the sound of the alarm, and not in the direction of it, whenever possible. And that is the only direction to move in, concerning that room. Away from.
   With the furniture gone to a better place, the table can return to the kitchen and take up its handy space over the vital equipment sheltering there. Everything is a wee bit crowded. And everything feels a wee bit cluttered.
   But clutter is essential. Clutter tells you where clutter gathers easiest. It allows for change. If the routine is clogged, fix the way clutter materialises. Eventually, even the clutter-free areas start to fill up. As I type this, I realise the oven is far too cluttered. I must save that pizza, right now.
   Saved the pizza. I’ve emptied the indoor bins. They all go on a Monday, as there’s a Tuesday pick-up for one of them. I busy myself making sure they are all maintained. Sometimes, there’s a lot of cardboard to ration out.
   There’s no clutter on the stairs. That really is a rule to live by. I don’t like clutter in the kitchen, as that’s one of the dangerous places in the house – where the controlled flame lives. But the other dangerous place is on the stairs. And the OTHER dangerous place is around that ladder leading to the loft. The stairs are free of clutter, and the immediate loft area is also free of obstruction…
   The kitchen is safe, though extremely cramped. As January rain turns to February bitterness, things will clear. New windows. Old furniture, heading out. Rearranging storage in the loft. Finding time to move that electrical chair and that inflatable support cushion, and booking an appointment with stores to send items back.
   Clutter is inevitable. And clutter is important. You see where the busy places are, and they are relatively-clutter free. Oh, there’s equipment standing by. There always is, almost from the start of being a carer.
   You use what is there, at first, and you quickly remove items that are potentially lethal to you and the cared-for. Then the specialist equipment comes in. Cakes. Buns. Biscuits. Coffee. There’s no escaping those.
   I look at the dedicated space for pills. And I glance at the dedicated space for mobility equipment. I see the thermometer gun that tests our lack of fever each day. There are masses of batteries, and now a battery-tester, to keep all the handy gadgets going.
   There’s a machine that makes soup. That’s for my wellbeing. You can easily say that of the machine with flashing lights – the one that impersonates a tree every December. Also for wellbeing. Now that’s clutter worth having.