Count your blessings or the whingeing post

Two weeks ago today I had a phone call from my brother that I had been expecting but had hoped would not come for a while. My mother has been living with my brother and his wife, at their invitation, for the last 14 months because she was unable to cope living alone and was having panic attacks. Even without the vascular dementia she is hard to cope with, but the memory loss has made it all far worse. My sister-in -law (who quite honestly deserves a sainthood) had finally snapped and says she can no longer have her in her house. So my mother was shipped off to me.She is the most annoying person ever. It is like dealing with a stroppy 3 year old and she says the most hurtful things then denies it all because she can't remember. Sometimes I'm not sure if all of it is her memory loss or just her personality which is entirely self centred. She is also one of those people who I think of as a happiness drain, so after a short while in her company you want to slit your own throat and hers. Then I feel guilty for feeling that way, because she is my mother after all.  I also feel bad, because entirely selfishly I can't bear the thought of looking after her for the next 10 years when I was looking forward to retirement and having some me time. My children are still not entirely independent either.



Over the bank holiday weekend we took my mother and mother-in -law for a short trip to Mumbles which was not a great success but I found this Burleigh vase in a charity shop. So every cloud does come with a silver lining.
I drove her to my sister's yesterday and we will take 2 week stints until we sort out a solution.

That's the whingeing bit out of the way.

I haven't made that much in the last 2 weeks but before my mother arrived I managed to finish this animal quilt top for a colleagues baby daughter

 

 

And this is the back

 



Now I have to quilt and bind it. I also have made one more star block.

 

 

This is a modified Nevada star. I missed out the bits in the 4 corners which make an additional pattern if you make repeated blocks.

 

I haven't blogged about the Festival of Quilts itself because the moment has gone but this quilt made me cry

 

 

 

And I realise I have to count my blessings.