My favourite directions ever was when we were outside listowel, looking for my wife's uncle's house.

"It's where they were going to put the post office before they decided to put it in the town instead."

I do this too, for exactly that reason. I keep ones from immediate family for more than one season, so that I have a collection of their cards over the years. When my mum died, just to have her handwriting on all the cards became a precious thing.

Good for you! 🙂 I like traditions like these and the chance it gives to connect. Lets people know that you think of them/haven't forgotten them. My whittling down of the cards I send has only been with those who have dropped properly out of my life. Even then I'll only stop after years have passed!

I like getting cards from people I don't see that often and it makes me happy to get one (say) from new neighbours. I like sending them, too 🙂 We don't have kids so we never really got into making our place look Christmassy but I do like to put the cards up that we receive 🎄

🤣🤣🤣 Funny you should say that! According to Ronnie Wood, when Bowie was jamming with Jagger in Wood's house, they started larking about with the Dick Emery catchphrase. It became the Stones' "It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like it)". Such campery! 😁 www.loudersound.com/features/the...

Go, boys!

I bloody love a man in pink, I do 😍

Night, Jen ❤️ A new week, a new dawn. Hope it's a good one for you xx

The high street and the community are so important. The lessons we learnt from caring for my mum play a big part now in decisions for the future that I and Mr Shed make for ourselves. Even with dementia, and just by being "her", my mum was giving me skills to negotiate my own old age ❤️ xx

P.S. Just to add that before my mum moved from London to Kent we saw her and my dad approx every 3 wks. Brighton to London is easy. When Dad died my mum moved out to the Kent coast so it was then every 6 weeks, both ways. Kent years make up a big part of my happy memories. A second life for Mum 🙂

Not every day. But never, in all my years after leaving home, did I speak to my mother every day. When it was obvious her memory was going we exchanged emails, and then texts, every day. And when she started "forgetting" the texts I moved her close to me and saw her every day. But before that, no.

I would find that fascinating and amusing (and probably take notes of which shops, etc., for myself), but if I were low then probably (certainly) not so much 😟

P.S. Other thing I realised about these stalwarts of the high street (my mum was an education in that respect) was that they are completely non-judgemental. It's their livelihood. The last thing they are going to do is offend a client and so their skills at bringing worrying stuff up are exemplary 👍

Honestly, Jen, all those workers in the "personal care" business (hair, feet, etc.) are stars. They notice stuff. My hairdresser, for instance, once spotted a melanoma between the exuberantly thick strands of hair of a client. "I'd get that checked out if I were you" he said. And she did 🙏

P.P.S. And when you're washing someone's feet the trousers (which my mum wore all the time) get rolled up. So you get to see those lower limbs, where psoriasis/other stuff might be hiding. Hairdressers too, where I took Mum once a week, great for scalp stuff 👍

57 minutes! That's a long call! My brother and I speak every few months for about 2 hours but we would run out of things to say if it was any more often. In person though, if we lived around the corner from each other (I wish!) it would be shorter and probably more natural xx

P.S. Big win for me was getting my mum to a podiatrist. She didn't have much wrong with her feet but the nails needed cutting. Too tough and risky for me to do. 3 weekly podiatrist appt gave me perfect excuse to wash her feet beforehand. Her pride about "getting her feet out" meant she didn't argue

Smell can be bad but you get used to it. My mum's seemed to emanate from her navel! I suggested it was because she no longer had baths (submersion of that area) so maybe a wipe would be good. No chance! 🙄 They can't help it tho' and if it's any consolation it wasn't poor hygiene that killed my mum

Sounds like my late mother-in-law! At one point my father-in-law had a meter installed for time spent on the phone 🤣 (Bills were expensive in those days.) Between my mother-in-law and his sister, that phone receiver was barely on the hook! 😁