In the last few days of her life my Grandma had been telling the staff in the hospital that she was a Salvationist.  She had been a member of the Salvation Army for most of her life.  Her parents were officers and she’d met my Grandfather at the officer training camp herself.  I’m not sure exactly when she stopped being a practicing member, but I do know that she’d started to get a bit mixed up with Christian Science later in her life (she had, in fact, told the nurses this was a mistake in her last few days).  My mum had asked the local Major to visit her in hospital just before she died.  I don’t think he made it.  So my mum decided, seeing as my Grandma had decided in her last few days that this was her true feelings, she should have a Salvation Army funeral.  Salvation Army funerals, as far as I can tell, are pretty much the same as any ‘standard’ Christian funeral, except the quality of the music and it being a celebration of the deceased’s life (in my opinion any funeral should be).

It was a small funeral (compared to her brother’s – he had died almost exactly a year before, but had been a professional footballer and international table tennis player!), with probably about 20 people at the Salvation Army hall.  After the service the immediate family carried on to the crematorium where we had a very short few words before committing the coffin to the crematorium oven (likely the queue for it, but it’s the symbolism which matters here).  After thanking the Salvation Army major and his wife, we headed back to my Grandma’s flat.

A few of her close family – her sister in law Molly, Molly’s children and their partners – had headed back there for a small get-together.  This was quite interesting.  We got out some of the photo albums we’d found the night before for them to look at, and to try to identify some of the people we didn’t know in the wedding photos and things.

Once they’d gone we started to sort through some of the paperwork my Grandma had built up during her life.  She used to teach accounting and was a secretary for a while and everything was sorted.  Literally everything.  Well over 20 year’s worth of stuff.  As well as all the bank statements there were some fascinating bits of history.  We found the details of her house in Southend-on-Sea from both when they bought it and when they sold it again, along with the receipt for the funeral of my Grandfather.  We also found the obituary of my Grandfather.  The thing which really struck me – I had to wander off into the spare room and have a little cry – was the line “he leaves behind a widow and 15 year old daughter.”  This was my mum.  I never knew my Grandfather, but I hadn’t realised that he’d died when my mum was just 15.

Another thing we found which I found fascinating was an email which Tim, my mum’s cousin, had sent my Grandma a few years ago with some research he’d done into the family tree.  It wasn’t very complete and he’d asked my Grandma to fill in any information she had.  She’d written a few things, but nothing all that illuminating and a few of the notes were in shorthand which no one could read.  This did set me off on a very interesting path doing some research of my own.  So far I have got back to the 1840s with concrete evidence, but have some information which points to people dating back to the late 1700s.  There’s loads more I need to do but it takes time, and at the moment time’s not something I have huge amounts of.  All being well, work permitting, I should have more time to work on it again, and I’m going to do some while I’m at home this week.

At the time she was in a ward Middlesbrough.  The ward wasn’t the best place for her – there was nothing to do, she was getting bored.  Although she was ill she was still basically mentally fit when prompted.  Yes, she couldn’t always remember things very clearly, but she was a very clever woman and when we visited as a family and talked to her about things she enjoyed (we did the crossword together, for example), she was fine.  On that visit we found some photos from her first wedding in the cupboard and my mum took those with her on the next visit to show her, and she remembered quite a bit about it, although couldn’t remember where abouts in Leeds the photos had been taken.  So my mum kept on at the hospital to get her moved somewhere nicer, somewhere nearer home, to the hospital I was born in, the little town hospital in Guisborough.

A couple of weeks after my visit they found a bed in Guisborough and she was moved there.  The room she moved to, I’m told, was much nicer.  The whole hospital, my mum reported, was much more friendly, much more set up for long term stays.  She had her own television and the staff asked what she’d like to watch to make sure she didn’t miss it.  She even had her hair done by the visiting hairdresser.  This was an important point – when we’d visited her in Middlesbrough she’d commented on how it had got a bit flat because she hadn’t been able to see a hairdresser.  I can imagine, for a woman who’s always had perfect hair, this was a major concern.

My mum visited every weekend from then on and I kept in contact with her.  She told me that the nursing staff had heard her praying.  I think this was the point I realised that she’d decided that was enough.

She died not long after that, peacefully in the day with my mum there.  My mum had been to see her in the morning and she wasn’t really conscious, but she knew my mum was there.  Apparently she could move her feet a little if she wanted to acknowledge something.  My mum left her for a while to go into the town centre – she had a few things to do – and on her return she was greeted by the nurses who told her they were just about to call her.  My Grandma’s breathing had slowed, she was obviously pretty close to dying.

My mum sat with her and put the radio on.  My Grandma had always been very musical and played the piano very well into her old age.  Radio 3 were playing piano music.  The sun was shining brightly outside, and my mum read some sections from the bible.  Her breathing became slower until it finally stopped altogether.

My grandmother died peacefully on the 19th September 2009 in the same hospital I was born, almost exactly 25 years later.

The Blood Bowl site is nearly complete — I should have it all wrapped up by next week — which is a relief.  It’s been more work than I was expecting in all honesty.  I’ve done most of the updates for the theatre school website, but failed to get a ‘quote’ to them before their last committee meeting as I promised.  One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest has been and gone (you can read a review here and another one here).  My dad’s starting up a company and I went to a meeting in York with him and my brother about their marketing and publicity.  Actually I had two reasons for going back up north that weekend.

My Grandma isn’t very well.  She’s 88 and has been getting slowly worse for wear.  The last year has been most noticeable with her mental health going a bit down hill.  She was diagnosed diabetic last year and had been given a whole range of tablets to take to help.  When she was being forced to take them she was generally OK.  She was keeping on top of things at home and looking after herself.  When she was left to her own devices, however, she didn’t take her tablets and got worse.  She claims there’s nothing wrong with her (I think this might be something to do with Christian Science, although I’m not totally sure), and so would choose to leave the tablets.  When she doesn’t take them her blood sugar goes haywire and she starts to lose her grip on the day-to-day running of her life.

A couple of weeks ago she was found, by the neighbours, in her night dress in the bath.  She was just lying there with no water in it, and when asked why, she said she thought she was in bed.  They took her into hospital in Middlesbrough.  After some tests they found she’s got cancer. (I’m not sure quite what kind, but it doesn’t matter.  They don’t know where it started or how long it’s been around, but it doesn’t matter.  They only found it by chance so it obviously hadn’t been affecting her very much.)

So, a couple of weekends ago, the whole family went to visit her in hospital.  She was bored.  Stuck on a ward with no interesting conversation and nothing to do (it even turned out that she didn’t have her glasses with her so couldn’t even do crosswords or anything!).  When we were there talking to her she was fine — she asked my brother and I what we were doing, and we told her about our recent activities (I told her about the set building, my brother about his involvement with some music event) — she kept up with the conversation no problem, and we even did a bit of the crossword as a family.  Of course they’d been making sure she took all her tablets when she should.

This week she was moved to Guisborough hospital, incidentally the place I was born.  I’m told it’s a much nicer hospital where she has her own room with a TV and slightly more attentive nursing care (not that they weren’t good at the James Cook Hospital, but they were a little busier and so couldn’t pay as much close attention to each patient).

My mum visited her in Guisborough at the weekend.  She said she was very weak and isn’t eating much (when we were there she said she didn’t have much appetite).  I guess there’s no getting away from the fact she’s dying.  Of course it’s sad, but she’s comfortable and seems quite happy.  I guess she’s had a while to come to terms with it — she’s had friends die and her brother died last September — and it seems to me she’s pretty much accepted it.  The doctors have given her three months from the cancer, I suspect it’ll be less than that just from old age.

I keep thinking I must have forgotten something.  This is despite taking an extra day to get ready.  I had planned to leave on Monday.  That left Saturday to work (more about that some other time), Sunday to finish off the shopping, and pack and the Monday was free for travel.  It didn’t quite work out like that.

I did work on Saturday and I did try to shop on Sunday – in fact I made a special trip across to the Westfield Shopping Centre in London (the new big one which opened just in time for the Christmas rush) – but it was slightly less successful than I had anticipated.  I only had one really important present to buy, something for my Grandma, but despite my best efforts I failed to get her anything.  Admittedly the Westfield was/is not the most appropriate place to look for Grandma type things, but I had hoped it would have something. It didn’t.  So I tried Oxford Street.

The problem with Oxford Street is that if you don’t know what you’re looking for you’re unlikely to find anything you want.  I never know what I’m looking for so I rarely find anything at all.  This time was a very slight exception.  I set out knowing I needed to find something for my Grandma.  This was the important one.  Not the only one, but the most important one.  I’m going to see her on Christmas day – that’s the day after tomorrow – so I needed to find something that day.  But, ah ha!  “Actually, if I don’t find something today I can always find something on Tuesday”.  Great idea, assuming I manage to get home on the day I plan to get home.  Getting home on Monday gives me Tuesday and even, if it’s an absolute emergency, Wednesday to find something.  As you know, I’m only just on the way home now.  Tuesday.  Afternoon.

So, a bit of a success?  Yes.  I managed to buy a present which I didn’t need to buy until after Christmas.  As well as my family I had both Tiffany and Dana on my present list.  Tiffany’s reasonably easy – gift vouchers for Dress Circle or something to do with theatre, I also spotted a large Kandinsky calendar – Dana’s a little harder.  However the mild success came in the form of a desk calendar.  I was in Borders looking around and books and things which Grandma might like when I spotted a table with lots of desk calendars on it.  I didn’t think much to begin with, but then saw a collection of calendars which related to certain countries.  They had little phrases and bits of trivia about the country in question.  I looked and found exactly what I was looking for: one about Spain.  Dana’s starting a Spanish course with the Open University in February, so this is perfect – it’s only small so she can’t complain I’ve spent too much on her, it fits in with something she’s doing and interested in, and it shows I’m willing to help with her learning.  Great.

Unfortunately that’s all I managed to buy, which still leaves the problem of what to buy my Grandma.  I now have tomorrow.  Just tomorrow.

Anyway, enough with talk of exams (that was the last entry!).  Its spring bank holiday next week, hurrah.  It will give me chance to have at least some kind of rest, even if I have promised to go into Age Concern at some point over the holidays (rather was nagged into it by my mother, lol).

Now, I don’t remember if I have talked about this before in here (I think probably I have in passing), but my father, being the adventurous, daring and thrill seeking man that he is (umm, read: slightly mad, but dead set when he gets ideas into his head) wants to build what will be, apparently, a revolutionary ‘underground’ house.  He doesn’t work (actually there is something I definitely haven’t written about before in here because he only decided in the last month that he wasn’t going to work anymore – he used to do supply teaching a bit, but finally decided to pack it in because he was fed up with it.  He also does property development (buy to let, buy to refurbish, etc.).  Well now he doesn’t do much.  The property development is all very well and good, but it doesn’t take much work – the odd viewing of a house that he might want to buy, every so often talking to our builder about how much it would cost to do some work, making phone calls to the estate agent to tell them he either will make an offer or will not.  So he spends most of his time at home (which doesn’t affect me all that much except when I want to come home and put music on stupidly loudly to make myself feel better after a long day or something…and I can’t).  True he does some work on our house, but other than that he doesn’t seem to do much), and so has this as a pet project to manage the building of an ‘eco-house’ on some land we own.  We got planning permission for it a while back, so he is making plans for getting on with it.  Now, to bring the story up-to-date, we got a telephone call from someone who is, apparently, a famous architect the other day.  My dad was really excited about it (sorry, I fail to get excited).  Anyway, this bloke rang because he wanted to feature our development in a journal that he is the editor for.  Umm, yey?  No, I don’t want to be all over a architecture journal.  He also did a little bit of a pricing on the build, and, umm, its going to be a bit expensive (I don’t remeber the exact cost, but I do remeber thinking that it would be far more than he would ever dream of spending on a ‘real’ house, let alone building one.  Personally I think its too much risk, and so does my mother, but he is still set on it…and we will have to see.

My parents are at planning holidays again – they pretty much only just came back from the one they are on and out come the brochures.  This time they are looking at a canal holiday.  We have done canal holidays quite a bit in the last few years (well boating holidays – we have been on rivers as well).  Its one of the holidays I actually like going on with them.  I’m not so keen on going off on the foreign holidays with them because they usually end up being pretty dull, but when we go on boats I quite enjoy it (actually, I really enjoy it).  I have something to do, because I usually drive, and its nice and slow and a nice change from real life and fast things and things.  Anyway, they are looking at getting a long weekend the weekend after the exams (or a few days in the week in the week after the exams).  One problem is the cat though – there is no one to look after him if we all go away (we don’t put him in a cattery any more, he is too old now for things like that), one of the options is to either take him down to my grandma’s house and let him stay there (its quite good because he is happy in the car as long as we are on motorways and things – last time we took him down there he looked out of the window for a bit, and then fell asleep in the footwell for the rest of the way (although he didn’t like coming back when we went over the country roads), or my grandma could come up here to look after him (and its a bit like a holiday for her, she can meet the people from my mums church and things).  I can’t think of much else we can do really because there is no one else who can look after him.  We will have to see.

Talking about my grandma – I need to send her the pictures I took of the deer on our land the other day (actually a few weeks back now).  My parent’s had seen a deer before on there, and told me about it, but I hadn’t believed them.  Then when they were on holiday I was walking down the hill above our land and I saw two of them just sitting amongst the grass.  They were really cute!  I had to go and get my camera and take pictures of them, and they came out not so bad (although the weather was a bit poor, and you can tell).  My mum thinks that she would be interested, so I should send them to her (it will also keep her happy – she likes to get email from me for some reason, likes to know what I am up to and things – she likes me sending pictures of things I have been up to, like th catings from theatre school).  Oooh, look, it all leads on – talking of theatre school…

We have another 2 weeks off.  Its a shame really because its good fun, and I get to see all my friends from there which I don’t get to see any other time.  I’m going to miss it when I go off away, but they said that we can come back next year in the summer and go to Epping with them (as leaders no less, worrying…), and some of my other friends from school who also go to theatre school are staying here and going to Huddersfield uni, and want to stay on and do some sessions with the younger years, so I don’t suppose I will lose all contact (at least I hope not!).  I want to keep in contact with the people who go as well on a personal level so finger crossed it wont be so bad!

Okey enough for one entry, I’ll return and write more (just one more big entry, then back to more frequent focused things).