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- Member
Sat Dec 24, 2016 11:54 pm
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This is gonna be a long post because WHAT a few weeks it’s been… hectic or what!
First SM. Shortly after my bro was hospitalised, SM received word that his dad was in hospital too
with a heart attack. So he high tailed it to North Wales. His dad survived, and is on all sorts of meds now.
SM stayed for the best part of a month ferrying his mum to the hospital and back as his mum can longer drive due to her arthritis and eyesight probs.
In the meantime, SM quizzed the docs about both his parents… I’m sure he must have trained in interrogation techniques. Armed with this info, and to fulfil the desire that both his parents want to both live and die in their house, and not a care home, SM sprung into full Sargent Major action.
SM’s are very impressive in many ways, but I don’t they’re geared up to run a society; they’re too bossy.
SM realised that sleeping downstairs was not an option, so he organised a stair lift to be installed.
At the same time, he organised their upstairs 1970’s bathroom (avocado suite… uck) be replaced by some open sided bath with slings, and otherwise seriously updated.
His parents are like me; they prefer baths to showers.
At the same time, AGAIN, he was worried about proper heating for them. Their old Arga/back boiler system was fine for providing heat during winter when it was middling to mild.. But it involves a lot of heavy work, which they are no longer capable of. Plus when it REALLY gets cold (a lot in Snowdonia… I reckon there’s a clue in the name) out come the electric heaters. No choice really, as there’s no gas laid on in the area. Result: Massive electricity bill in winter.
He has state of the art storage radiators installed too. But I advised him to make sure Scottish Power changed the metre from standard tariff to Twin Heat A. Then they’d really make maximum savings, and to put it in writing (email actually…same difference.) Otherwise they may try to palm you off with EC 7 (rubbish) or Twin Heat B (good for some, but not his parents.)
In the meantime, also, this was massive work, so SM, when his father was discharged, took his family to his home, to avoid the disruption. So SM ended up as a carer to his parent/s.
Money helps…. If you have it…. But what if you don’t.
We seem to be meeting in some kind of middle ground. .
And I haven’t started on The Kid; who’s doing really well. Or the new kid he’s taken on who wants to be a landscape gardener that SM and his parents have taken on.
I will fight for the fact that it doesn’t have to be like this. We can work it out. Can’t we just it out together?
Is that so neive?
