Everything has changed in the months since I last wrote …
The change was unexpected and the pressure of it all has, only just, begun to ease a little.
It’s 3 months since Dad moved into the Resthome. Since then, I’ve gone through his house, storing some things, giving away others, and selling a little bit. It was huge. It sold quickly, and he experienced the relief of no longer having to watch how he spent his money.
Dad worked so hard, all of his life, and so it was lovely to drive him around, as he replaced his glasses; the ones that fell to pieces weekly. And to have his troublesome teeth repaired/removed and replaced.
He has settled into his new life, quite beautifully. It was time. I’ve watched as he’s thrived in the new, gentler, full-time-care, environment.
He looks younger than he’s looked in years. His osteo-arthritis and gout pain is being managed so much better than we could do it at home. He has routines and schedules that make his heart sing … something else we couldn’t manage at home.
If he’s in pain, or anxious, the staff at his little resthome are there to reassure and/or treat him. His tea is ready at 5pm, every day. He has friends, entertainment, and a room of his own.
I couldn’t wish for more for him, as his mind slips and shifts some days, sometimes much more than others.
Although, he still knows, for sure, that I’m not his granddaughter.
In the meantime, during these last 3 months, I’ve found a job that I love and I’ve moved to the lower south-west, here in New Zealand. I’m living and working in Fiordland, New Zealand. It’s an incredible place, where Nature is in the ascendent and man simply works out how to live in the midst of it all.
Te Anau receives something like 1.500mm of rain per year, and Milford Sound … a meagre 8,000mm. And I love it. Rain has always been special to me and I realise now, after living here in the 90s, that Fiordland rain was the rain I wanted to experience where ever I lived in the world. But no place else had the pristine natural space that is here and so torrential rain was never going to be as sweet-smelling and as glorious as it is down here.
I work in the Visitor Centre, and it’s a far-cry from how I imagined that job might play out. It’s so much more. Mostly I’m absolutely loving the fact that the world drops by daily, wanting advice on what to see and do. Actually, mostly people want to know what the weather will be and that, my lovely friend, is impossible to know.
We have the science of the NZ Met Service’s weather report but Fiordland can do almost anything outside the constraints of that prediction. I love that no one really knows precisely how things will play out when it comes to the weather.
I live about 22kms from Te Anau … it’s an escape to the country, at the kind invitation of an old friend from the 90s. I moved quite a few weeks ago but I go back to Dad, and to Miss 15, every second ‘weekend’.
‘Weekend’ because my new weekend is Monday and Tuesday, and I’m good with that. It leaves me free to do all that needs done over in Dunedin and Mosgiel. The same goes when I get to stay here, on alternate weekends. I actually managed to see a doctor, and that’s taken a while to do properly.
So I’m loving my new life. I feel so very fortunate. I love my new bed and bedroom. Mark, formerly known as Dad’s cat Mark, has gone beyond expectations and settled in here, on the farm. He caught 4 mice, in 12 hours, the other day. Made possible by a double Mast this season, gifting the rodents many seeds, creating an exploding population of mice, rats, ferrets, weasels and stoats. Needless to say, that translates as a nightmare for our native bird population.
One of the things I am really loving about this life, is the passion I’m finding amongst staff, down here at DOC (the department of conservation) in Te Anau. My colleagues are passionate about protecting and developing New Zealand’s natural wilderness and wildlife. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of.
But anyway, more to follow. This is just a note, to tell you I’m back … almost thinking again, and about to head off on a grand adventure in the days ahead.
The view … from Fraser’s Beach, Lake Manapouri. A sunrise, with special people.
