Tulips

 

I managed a walk downtown yesterday afternoon, to buy myself a bunch of tulips. It was one of those "keep your eyes on the ground" kind of walks, though (i.e. watching out for icy spots) so I've only got photos of the tulips!  

It has become somewhat of a tradition for me to buy tulips for 20 February, since that was my mother's birthday. As this month is also the time for tulips in the flower shops, she often got tulips for her birthday. Now I can't give them to her, but while enjoying them on my own table, I think of her. 92 years today since her birth. 13 years in May since she died.

Mum tending her own garden. Looking back, it's hard to quite grasp the fact that I'm a year older now than she was when this photo was taken!

Waiting for Spring

Oops, I suddenly realize it's been a full week since my last post here. It's been a mostly indoors kind of week, wet and grey, snow-free, and with nothing to inspire photography on my short walks for exercise. I've not been into town, or even gone shopping for groceries (except online, with home delivery yesterday). Last night it snowed a bit again, but very wet and slushy stuff. The sun has now come out again, but I'm not sure what kind of footwear would be best suited to attempt a walk...

Awaiting spring, I have got rid of some tired indoors plants, and renewed some by taking cuttings, putting those in water to grow roots, and then planting them in pots. My attempts with a geranium failed, but "painted nettles" (coleus) are easy. I used to have those back in my youth (originally from cuttings I got from my mum), but at some point I failed to renew them, and I think it's been decades since I last had any - until last year, when they suddenly seemed to have become popular again, and I bought one, which soon became two, and then three - out of which two have now been renewed, one cut back, and I may have yet a few "babies" on the way...

 

The "sampling tubes rack" (glass bottles) was a gift from my brother, many years ago.

- - -

If you like, you can also visit my Sepia Saturday post on my blog Greetings from the Past, where I've just reached the end of a series based on postcards that my great-aunt Gerda (a traveling lady's maid) wrote from France during WWI. The end of the war was not the end of her travels, though, and I'm still feeling inspired to continue to try and piece together what I know in some kind of chronological order. 

Men At Work

 

Since Mid November there have been roofers at work putting new tiles on the roofs of buildings in my neighbourhood. They got started in November just before we had the first round of snow and cold weather, and have kept at it through snow, wind, thaw, rain, slush, frost, ice - start over and repeat, I forget how many times now... I don't envy them their working conditions!

They'll get to my building too at some point, but I'm not sure when. Meanwhile, I've been zooming them in from a distance with my camera occasionally, to try and prepare myself mentally for what to expect. (Like, will they be climbing about outside all of my windows, or only some?)

Watching them set up scaffolding on a sunny day was quite fascinating. Made me wonder if they get the job done twice as fast in sunshine, as then each guy also has "help" from his own shadow!

They certainly seem to have got into a routine of how to do it by now. Look closely at the photo on the left above. See how the guy is holding his hand out (blurry because of movement) to a loose piece of scaffolding, midair? He's not dropping it - he's catching it. He was on the 2nd floor, and both long and short parts of scaffolding were thrown up to him one by one, by another guy down on the ground. (Cf the middle photo in collage No 2.) Thrower and catcher seemed perfectly coordinated in their movements - but I can certainly see the need for them to wear hard hats...! :o

Remains to be seen how bothered I'll be by the noise when they get to my building. But at least I don't live on the top floor!

First Signs of Spring

 

Walking into town today I noticed the first signs of spring: A few snowdrops in bloom in a little flower bed created by someone living in the condos along the riverside. (The footpath between the buildings and the river is public, though.)

In spite of this, winter is not likely to be over for a good while yet. We'll probably see more snow again soon (although predictions just now vary between rain and snow, as temperatures are likely to  still be up and down around freezing point).

Tomorrow, Sweden will be lifting most of the corona-restrictions that have been in place over winter - like how many people may gather indoors for this or that purpose, etc. However, this does not mean that the pandemic is over, either. Only that with the 'omicron' variant, and with most people now either being vaccinated, or having had the disease (or both!), it's behaving differently (most people not getting seriously ill). So the restrictions aren't serving the same purpose any more. Or so they say. For my own part, I think I'll probably prefer to "keep my distance" for a bit longer. Or at least not immediately join a big crowd for celebrations!

Storm Malik and The Old Woman

 Or: It Was A Dark And Stormy Night...

It's been another week of "tread-carefully-and-keep-your-eyes-on-your-feet-when-out-walking"...

Storm Malik passed by here last weekend, with various unforeseen consequences in tow. While out walking yesterday (watching my feet, so only one photo), I was trying to start writing this blog post in my head; but for some reason my thoughts went to an old nursery rhyme/folk tale. When I got back home, I went online to check if it's the same in English. I found that in English it's called The Old Woman and Her Pig. It took me a while to find it, because in the Swedish version, there's no pig involved! Here, it starts and ends instead with a boy who refused to go to school. Verbally, ours is also snappier* (see below).  Otherwise it's basically the same - describing a chain of events with one thing leading to another (which is why I came to think of it in the first place). 

...And as soon as the cat had lapped up the milk, the cat began to kill the rat; the rat began to gnaw the rope; the rope began to hang the butcher; the butcher began to kill the ox; the ox began to drink the water; the water began to quench the fire; the fire began to burn the stick; the stick began to beat the dog; the dog began to bite the pig...

*In Swedish though, it's more like this (and should be read very fast): "cat on the rat, rat on the rope, rope on the ox, ox on the water, water on the fire, fire on the stick, stick on the dog, dog on the boy, and the boy to school!"

[Swedish: "katten på råttan, råttan på repet, repet på oxen, oxen på vattnet, vattnet på elden, elden på riset, riset på pojken, och pojken till skolan"]

Anyway, applying this pattern of consequences to my week, it went something like this:

In the night between Saturday and Sunday, while I was sleeping, Storm Malik caused a power outage in my area of town. The power outage (or the power coming back on again) caused damage to the motor of an electrically adjustable backrest that I've had mounted on my bed for nearly 16 years (technical aid originally prescribed for a complicated situation with surgery on top of other pain problems at the time). When the power came back on, the motor started giving off a strange and very loud noise, which woke me up. At first I assumed the noise must come from some machine outside (like a snow plow). When I realized where it did come from, I hurried to pull the plug out - feeling rather scared! It wasn't until a bit later, when a newsflash on my tablet informed me that there had been a power outage during the night, that the whole thing began to make some sort of sense at all. (I also learned the power had come back on around the time when I woke up.) 

As it was Sunday, there wasn't anything further I could do about it that day (except start pondering the consequences).  Thankfully no other appliances had broken down. (I had to restart my TV cable box, but it let me do that without protests.)

On Monday, I called the primary health care rehab unit; and in the afternoon, an occupational therapist called me back. She was very nice, but since we were new to each other, 20+ years of explanations (medical history) were needed (phew). At the end she said that she would call the technical aids centre, and they'd get back to me.

On Tuesday, the same occ. therapist called again and told me the tech guys had told her they would not repair the backrest because it was too old. And what with current rules and regulations, and my needs having changed compared to 16 years ago, she also could not prescribe me a new one. I had anticipated as much, so did not argue with that, but said that in that case, I needed help to get rid of the thing. And perhaps some advice about simpler alternatives.

So on Thursday, the OT made a house call to demount the Thingy from my bed - a procedure requiring acrobatics (getting down on the floor and wriggling in under the bed) that I (still) wouldn't dare try now - even if on the whole, I am more mobile today than I was in 2006. (On the other hand, I'm 16 years older. And, as I keep telling people, the older one gets, things are rarely as simple as just stating that one is "better" or "worse" compared to 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago...) The OT managed the necessary acrobatics, though. So in that respect, all went smoothly - and just now, I'm feeling mostly grateful to have got rid of the no longer helpful contraption. (Actually I think that even if they'd manage to repair it, I'd now have been scared of a repeat experience!)

However, I now have to kind of re-learn some movement patterns. (If someone asked you on the phone - like the OT did me - "How do you get out of bed?" - would you be able to describe the exact procedure from lying flat down in your bed to finding yourself standing next to it?)  And I also need to figure out the right combination of pillows etc needed now for comfortable daytime rest, and for example reading. I had an old bed wedge pillow down in my storage room (from way back before the electric thingy), but I think I may need a higher one. Nowadays the internet is full of stuff like that, only a click away - the problem is just to decide what design, size, shape, angle, height, weight etc etc might work best for me at the moment. (I'd prefer if I could walk into a shop and try them out!)

So the next consequence is that I've spent so much time googling backrests this week that now all my devices (laptop, tablet, phone) are full of 'cookies' from all kinds of places selling various rehab stuff. (From the Big A to specialized smaller websites.) In turn with the consequence that where/what ever else I go or do online now (playing games, using Facebook etc), ads for technical aids keep popping up every two minutes. Not only wedge pillows and backrests (that I've already looked at a dozen times), but a million other kinds of "senior" and medical stuff as well... from walkers to pill poppers and compression stockings (and all claiming to be the best of its kind).

I did of course also discuss pillow/backrest alternatives with the occ. therapist. But decided to give it a bit of time to figure out what I think might serve me best, and at a reasonable price. (Reading customer reviews may also be worth while. For example, there was one pillow that looked good size-wise, but I found reviews mentioning that it had a bad smell...)