WEEKLY CHAT (non-osprey) SUNDAY JUNE 16, 2019

Happy New Week and Happy Father's Day!

  • Aarrgghh! Just typed a response and was then told I wasn't logged in! Now I am … I'll try again.

    Lindy, I no longer try to understand the NHS. A friend of a friend, who has quite severe mental health and anxiety problems, and who has been in hospital for around five weeks, is being discharged tomorrow morning with no care package and no support - she was told late this afternoon. She lives alone and has taken many overdoses. She has not seen a doctor - her psychiatrist left about a month ago and has not been replaced. She will almost certainly overdose again … this is so cruel and uncaring. What can one do?
  • Today I posted on flickr my pics of 2 headstones at Echunga. You probably aren’t interested in them but I thought I would tell the story of how they came to be. I snapped the h/s first on a recent bus trip. When I mentioned them to Chauffeur Friend, she was keen to capture them. The h/s are tucked away in a triangular corner at rear of Uniting church, difficult to photo. First I climbed under the street railing, oof, difficult to get these aged joints back up without using replacement knees. I take photo. Cleverer than I, CF treks away and finds a way past the fence. I, sort of, crawl out. CF tries to photo close-ups but bright sunlight through winter tree branches is creating deep shadows. We won’t be able to read inscription on photo. CF treks back to car, retrieves a rug, she just happens to have (as one does). I clamber over railing to hold rug to shade headstones. I clamber back, we swop places, she holds rug for me. Satisfied with our results, we wonder if anyone was watching the antics of these 2 strange ladies.

  • Hallo all:  Still doing lots of paperwork updating, etc., here, then tidied up garage this afternoon and organized piles for charity shops, Habitat for Humanity and the can't-be-recycled plastics disposal people.  Ended up sorting out irrigation for a  neglected plant stuck in a dark corner and whacked a few branches off neighboring shrubs to give it some light.  It's still cool, so am trying to get all the "hot" chores done before June Gloom disappears....

    Lindybird: Thorough is a good word.  :-)

    PatO: Unfortunately, mental health care seems to be way down the list here too.  There's a national (international??) shortage of psychiatrists.   It's depressing....   Even if people are discharged with a so-called plan, they're often not capable of following it.  I do hope your friend is okay.

    AQ: I can picture it: two dotty old dears acting suspiciously in a graveyard.  I looked at the photos and was intrigued by the inclusion of two-year-old Richard Vernon Saint (?), buried with Mr & Mrs Cooper and their 13-year-old son....

    Still scanning my way through the family photos.....

    Take care all

  • ANNETTE – You dinna read my notes under pics! Wee Richard Vernon Saint was a grandson of the “above” Charles. The son of Charles’ daughter Elizabeth Annie who married Robert William Saint.

    Off to nanny duty. . . 

  • AQ: Notes? :-)) You're right. I didn't. I'd clicked on the photos to enlarge them so I could read the headstones.
  • Good Morning. Two contrasting posts last night: Pat, very worrying for you, about your troubled friend. They keep saying that mental health is being neglected, in terms of both funding and caring in the NHS . Especially in regards to young people, sadly. I hope your friend gets proper help.

    AQ - A great mental picture of you crawling under fences, Ha Ha!! Things we do.... Glad you got the pics you wanted, such was your determination.

    Annette, sounds like a productive day!

    When I got back from the Docs, I found my OH had been up a long ladder to cut the top of a very tall holly tree which had set itself some years ago in our garden: we'd decided not to take it out altogether, but I hoped he wouldn't climb a ladder alone!

  • Hi all
    Just a,check in to say thanks for chat ( and cartoon, LINDY!)
    I'm trying to catch up with outside jobs, will come back later, if I can stay awake :-)
  • Hallo all: Lots of out-and-about errands today. Back later
  • LINDA - sounds as if you two are being checked for almost everything - is your GP surgery doing a special project for a certain age? Naughty OH, climbing the ladder while home alone - I wish men wouldn't do stuff like that - and they say we women are impulsive! Thanks for cartoons - especially liked today's!

    PAT - care for people with mental health problems is particularly bad - I think we failed to see what modern life would do to so many people and we just don't have the people trained to deal with it. I hope your friend will get the help she needs.

    AQ - love the description of you and Friend getting the photo shots you wanted! Hope you had an easier Nanny Day this week!

    ANNETTE - you are very dedicated with your photo scanning - we only do it in "fits and starts" then get fed-up!

    HEATHER - good to see you are able to get on with outside jobs. We wish we could, but appointments keep getting in the way.

    Yesterday J had a bad time at the "Occ. Health" agency - totally fell out with the person who has been seeing him, never seen him as stressed as he was after that! Today he went to Dumfries for a Thyroid Ultrasound (suggested by the Christie Endocrinologist. OH got home with him and took him into work, we had our lunch and then we set out for my routine visit to Oncology - all well.

    I think this has been our third consecutive day of dry summer weather!