There are bag pipes

Having been in that barren blog free land since September I have, today, decided to take up my ..keyboard. Two prompts - a comment on my last blog jogged me and an hour later I found in the pocket of my trousers a piece of paper with eight words on it - Bag pipes. There are some pipers in kilts.

handwritten note

This note goes some way to explaining the sudden drop off in my blogs after 16 months. The note was passed to my Mother in law who was sitting by her bed on a rehab ward in hospital after a fall that fractured her hip and arm. She fell not long after my own Mother had had a nasty bout of pneumonia.

It was not the mobility problems that ensued after the fall, or the problems with dressing or even the delicate dressing and bathroom arrangements that caused the most anguish....it was her hearing. Before the fall she had been very deaf and stubbornly refusing to have any investigations with a view to seeing if there was anything that could be done. This meant that specialist services for deaf people were also not part of the picture too. She had once been told as a girl not to let anyone touch her ear ...yah ..yah and she just turned up the TV a bit louder very week.

But after the fall she went completely deaf. Not even yelling one inch from her ear would get through.  We have resorted to writing everything down. The bonus is that we all know what has been said and she can keep messages with times and dates on them. This message was to tell her that just outside her door two men in full Scottish dress were playing bagpipes - and was it loud. [actually it was excruciating..an acquired taste are bag pipes!] She had no idea. It was then we realised the extent of the problem and when we moved into full message mode. She is just about to start on an investigation 2013 style so let us hope she can get some of it back as she is getting mighty  weary of subtitled TV..even if the neighbours are having a quieter time!