It has been over a week since I last blogged and time has started to pass quite quickly once again. I still have moments when I miss Margaret but the pain of her last few days is gradually fading.
I now realise that up until a few weeks ago that i was suffering from depression or post traumatic stress both of which I used to consider things which only affect weak people. Boy have I changed my mind. I never want to go back to the way i was in December and early January when I just got through each day with no real enthusiasm or purpose in life. I think MOW has helped and the terrible Queensland floods gave a wake up concerning my condition.
I have made a decision to stay in my present house for the foreseeable future and to that end have commenced improving the place. First I have just had solar power panels placed on the roof of the garage which luckily faces north and gets full sun for most of the day. Soon they will be feeding energy back into the grid during the day and I will draw energy from the grid at night. At present I will be paid four times the normal cost of power for the energy fed to the grid. This means that if I limit my main power consumption to after sunset I will actually end up paying nothing for my electricity if I ignore the capital cost of the panels.
Sunset here is between 5.30pm in mid winter until about 6.45pm in mid summer. I shall now cook my evening meal a little later and do my washing after dinner. I can still use my shower and other hot water requirements when I want without upsetting my money grabbing scheme as I have already got a solar hot water service.
The special meter which determines the final balance still has to be installed.
Last Thursday I made my third MOW delivery round. As I was now an "experienced" volunteer I turned up just before 11.00am and parked my car in the queue. I signed in found my brand new name card and pinned it on before grabbing a coffee and cake. I chatted to the other volunteers and 11.15am we began to load up. I was about fourth in line. Because it was not a Friday I only had simple deliveries to make as there were no frozen meals for the weekend.
I though that this was going to be easy. My first stop on my way back towards Tewantin put an end to that thought. I couldn't find one of my clients' special sweet. I went through the containers several times and in the end gave up and promised to call back in an hour. The couple had their juice, soup and hot meal and he had his normal sweet.
Next I dropped of a normal meal to an American gent from the New England area who somehow or other has ended up in Tewantin! Then it was on to the Riverlands retirement estate where my troubles began. These estates are developed in blocks of units which are numbers sequentially but the blocks are often developed randomly. So while units 1 to 15 were on the left as I went in number 16 was in a totally different area of the estate.
I had not been given the map of the estate just the normal delivery sheets attached to a clipboard. I stopped at the entrance and tried to remember the location of my clients from the map showing the estate layout. I had about 20 different units to visit. I found the first OK and quickly handed over what I thought was a normal lunch. I remembered the second unit location OK and delivered a normal meal to a lady who knew me from when i used to give talks at the local computer club. Then after a visit back to the entrance I was of to my next client who was supposed to have a totally special diet. I found her juice, salad in lieu of soup and special sweet but no main meal! I did find the sweet which wasn't there earlier.
I was in a panic. I knew that I hadn't given it to my first clients but I could have given it to the yank. Again I said that I would be back.
After muddling through the next half dozen deliveries I ended up next to the lady's unit who was missing her dinner. Here I saw my first Riverlands client knocking on her door. He had a hot meal wrapped in a towel. Special meals all have the clients name written on them and being a little brighter than me he noticed this and had hand delivered the meal for me. I thanked him profusely and gave him his normal hot dinner. He thought it was funny but as MOW clients rely of us volunteers for getting the correct meals I was mortified.
I finished the rest of my deliveries without incident and dropped of the special sweet on the was back to the kitchen.
I was back about 12.45pm which wasn't bad. I signed off and grumbled to the other permanent kitchen staff (D was standing in and making a delivery round herself) that I hadn't been given a map of the Riverlands. She took the clipboard and folded it shut showing the map taped to the cover!! I explained that it was all their fault as they had assumed that I was of normal intelligence not an absolute idiot. She agreed that that they would not make the same mistake again. Actually I enjoyed the round. Using the Jazz's boot to store the containers was much more practical.
Apart from that I have been pottering around home and going shopping on my bike most days. On Australia Day I went to J's house for a BBQ with her mother and other friends. J's mother is 92 and was recently pulled over by the police for speeding on the mobility scooter.
Louis has been been bathed and clipped and is looking beautiful. I'll try and get him to pose for a photo before he gets all messed up again.
I have also resurrected my old web page. There is not much there yet but I will be adding more data in a few days. The Edwards/Commerfords may find the Remembrance Day page interesting.
https://sites.google.com/site/marbrisite/Home
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