May I share something with you? It’s a
little ditty that’s been occupying my headspace. To the tune of ‘The Drunken Sailor’,
altogether now:
What shall we do with the aged parent
What shall we do with the aged parent
What shall we do with the aged parent earl-ie in the
morning
Hooray and off he wanders
Hooray he’s talking nonsense
Hooray I’ve kept my patience
Earl-ie in the morning
Good job!
I could almost hear the harmonies.
Regular readers of my blog will be familiar with the grand plan I put
into place last summer which was to move my elderly father in. Not in with us, strictly speaking, that way
accidental patricide might lie, but into a separate annex or little flat so
he’s there, but not THERE if you get my drift.
Intergenerational living is going to be the
next big trend, I’m willing to bet on it.
Have you seen the cost of care homes?
I took one look (average weekly cost circa £500) and as our trans-atlantic
cousins might say, did the math. Even if
the NHS picks up the tab, many care homes don’t get a very good press, in fact
some of the recent horror stories documenting pensioner abuse make me wonder if
the staff were trained at the Goebbels-Stalin school for care of the
elderly. But I digress, and also
apologise if you have recently settled a loved one into, or are indeed
currently residing in a care home. We
all have to make our own decisions.
In my situation it seemed ludicrous to have
us in one smallish house, my father in another smallish house also belonging to
us, 25 minutes away, as a kind of remote sitting tenant, covering the mortgage
but not making us any profit. To me it made perfect sense to pool resources and
hey, if you want to purchase anything sizeable in Sevenoaks it’s either that,
or send your kids out to work or secure yourself a big fat bonus from the boss. The kids weren’t keen on being sent up
chimneys (the indolent creatures) so the other options had to be examined.
Sadly at my level in my industry (broadcast
journalism), annual bonuses are the stuff of legend, although I did once get an
extra 700 quid for risking life and limb going to the Kuwait/Iraq border with
US troops just before the 2003 invasion. So that was worth it. But in fact as far as people just giving me
money, frankly I stand more chance of finding rocking-horse droppings.
So with that in mind I hatched a plan and
like any good strategist, split it into digestible chunks. Phase 1 – make some proper money from broadcasting,
writing and property development. Phase
2 – find a house in good location in Sevenoaks with potential for us (me plus husband,
son, daughter, 4 cats) and space for said annex/flat. Phase 3 – move into house. Phase 4 – create annex. Phase 5 – move father into annex. Phase 6 – renovate and sell father’s current property. Phase 7 – use money from that property to
create nice family home. Phase 8 – oh
you get the picture – Phase 126 is probably ‘live happily ever after’.
Amazingly, after a few years of hard graft,
I now find myself at Phase 6 (please see above as I really can’t be bothered to
go through all that again) and moving my father has been anything but
straightforward. First of all, he was a
hoarder. Not just a slight hoarder with
a few piles of Reader’s Digest and old newspapers stacked here and there, oh
no. A class A, fully paid up member of Hoarders
Anonymous, you know the ones who would go to weekly meetings but can’t actually
find their front door behind all the stuff – boom boom.
Clearing out his house was traumatic to say
the least. He must have spent thousands
of pounds over the years accumulating stuff. I’ve never seen so much tut. For example, we’d clear out a corner of the
living room and amongst all the junk, put aside 5 packs of scissors, unopened. Then we’d open a drawer and find another 3
packs. Then in the kitchen there would
be 8 more packs stashed in various cupboards.
It was the same with fishing tackle, screwdriver sets, tool kits, packs
of stationery, socks, photo frames, t-shirts, plastic colanders, boxes of
tissues - the list was endless. It’s quite distressing on a personal level when
you realize that a parent has been living in a kind of hemmed-in hovel for
years with just narrow walkways to shuffle from room to room. Cleaning and general hygiene had gradually
slipped way down his list.
Now, I have the good fortune to be married
to a very kind and practical man who recognized how upsetting I was finding the
whole house clearing process, and gently took charge of the worst bits, and
between us we managed to salvage the good stuff and bin the rest. It took a week. We then did a boot fair and
made enough money to make the stress almost worthwhile. Every cloud and all that.
My dad has been here 5 weeks and has settled
in nicely. We established a few ground
rules such as phoning first, thus maintaining each other’s privacy and avoiding
“it’s only meeeee!” scenarios. He
invites me round for a cup of tea and to help him with paperwork. We invite him for weekend lunch and the occasional
barbeque. Last Friday he joined us for wine and tapas in the evening sunshine
to celebrate Husband’s first week in his new job. The kids love having Grandpa in the annex and
like nothing better than a quick half an hour after school watching his TV and
scoffing biscuits in his cosy lounge kitchenette.
So, am I counting the completion of Phase 6
as a complete success? Hmmmm, being a
natural cynic I’m taking it day by day!
