Bill\’s Thoughts and Comments

After a very long wait, since they put in the raised concrete floor, the glass frame and carpet has been laid. This week I look forward to them putting the blinds back up. The vertical blinds will have to be shortened and I am hoping that is something I can do with Joy when she comes down.

While Paul and I were out this morning we went to Spotlight and found the actual parts which we needed to replace in the blinds. I had been trying to manufacture a quick fix with modelling glue. It is so satisfying to have the real thing to put in. One had previously been tied up with wire.

I am pleased the back verandah will be ready in time for Barry and Joy and the girls visit at the end of the month because I enjoy sleeping out there although they don’t want me to move from my bedroom. I find it is easier to put the two girls in my bedroom.

Paul took me out to McDonalds early so that we could come back and fix up the wireless card in the computer which was dropping its signal. At this stage it looks as though by shifting it into the slot that the dial-up modem used, has fixed the problem. We keep trusting.

Some evenings Paul had school meetings on till 6.30 and then came over for a half hour, and off to the children’s break up party.  But he washed and cleaned up and served me tasty little things for my tea. 

For the last week of his holidays, John flew down from Brisbane and stayed with me and looked after me and took me out, so we have had a good time.  He took me to our shopping town and we got a scooter for me to ride round on.  One day he took me with him to visit friends of his down on the coast.  He went out with his friend on his boat, while I had a nice sleep. 

I am now feeling better, but my legs seem to be very tight and don’t like to do too much work.  We have a Masseur who comes to the village on Wednesdays and I am going to him and finding that helpful.  I will have to keep up the walking. 

So Paul came every day after school.  He had arranged with Salford Park that they would provide me with a hot meal for the first two weeks.  They were delicious, and the Nurse drove round in the village car, and delivered it piping hot each midday.  Then he got onto our Local Council, and had their assessment.  Paul and Di were here for that as it was School Holidays, and I had my Pride Bubble duly pricked!  I said my memory was fine, Paul reminds us that I write down the things I want to talk to him about at night! 

I am to have my cleaning lady given another 15 minutes to her hour to change my sheets and make my bed every fortnight, and hang out the washing.  I’m a ‘rut-ualist’ so I will have to change my ways.  I also was put on the list for getting ‘meals on wheels’ 5  days a week, and they are very nice, and so well cooked, and I only have to put them into the Microwave for 3 minutes, and have a lovely hot dinner.  So this is going to save a lot buying in food and cooking.  Paul felt I was not doing what I should have been doing in  having good meals, I guess I had a lot of mince things as that was easy! 

I had 5 days in hospital, then Paul brought me home on Saturday.  When I got up on Sunday morning, I sat up in bed and put my feet on the floor, and thought I feel well!  So I pulled the blind up, strided out in the usual long steps, and pulled the front room blind up and lit the gas heater, back to the bedroom picked my clothes up and into the bathroom, when suddenly I felt as weak as a kitten.  I spent the day shuffling around and stumbling!! 

Next day, when Paul took me to my Doctor, he told me it would take a month at least, to get over it, and maybe 6 weeks.  It is so hard for my mind to accept that you just have to start from the bottom up! I think in my mind, that I am the same, but it is getting used to the fact that the body is old and will take a longer time to recuperate! 

So Monday midday I went into one of our smaller hospitals here in the East, but a very good hospital that has had a lot of upgrading of late.  I was on the trolley for 24 hours, as our bed shortage is rather great.  But as they had let me keep my trousers and underwear on I did not freeze, and I found the trolley quite comfortable, and was very impressed with how hard the nurses work.  I  had just got into a bed on Tuesday when our care coordinator from Church called to see me, and was pleased to see that I was in a bed.  She said they had been praying for me that I would get a bed. 

On the 4^th of Sept. I went to see the Doctor and he said I had a viral chest infection, but he would not give me antibiotics, as he said they would not help.  But I was not coughing up anything, and by the weekend I was into pneumonia. 

Paul has been just so kind and helpful, he started right away coming each evening after work.  He tried to persuade me to call the ambulance and go to hospital but I kept putting it off, Saturday and Sunday.  Joy was calling on the phone and I told her I was not feeling too well, not realizing that I had now started pneumonia.  So Monday she called a very good Nurse friend here in Melbourne, to come and see me, but she was on Canteen, but said call the ambulance, and give them the heavy and get him to hospital, so she called Paul and he told the ambulance people that I was ‘confused’.  It may not have been the right word, but I was making bad decisions.

I was born in Ootacamund, which is in the Nilgeri Hills of South India, on the 19th of April, 1917. It was then the Madras Presidency, but now Tamil Nadu. My parents were English missionaries working on the plains below.  I had an elder and younger brother.

I went to Breeks Memorial School, Ootacamund, which was then run by Brethren Missionaries, from 1924 to 1930.  Aged 13, we returned to Britain and I went to a private Boarding School in  Exeter, Devon, for three years.  Mount Radford School under the Headmastership of Theo. Vine.  A Christian Brethren school.

My parents had settled in Glasgow, Scotland, to work for their Mission, so I had my last two years of School at Whitehill Secondary School, Dennistoun.  I then was apprenticed to Arthur & Company, Scotland’s biggest Wholesaler.  It took up a block off Queen St. in central Glasgow.

Joy and Barry are coming to Melbourne to say farewell to the church that has supported them through their missionary career over many years. They are leaving Pioneers to pastor a church at Morrisett 30 minutes south of Newcastle, NSW. I am really looking forward to their visit.

Paul has set up this blog for me so I can keep in touch with friends and let them know how I am going.

I will be notifying you of my blog address by email so you can visit me and I can share with you how I am getting along and a variety of things that interest me.