Much Water Under the Bridge

This blog was going apace till we shifted my mother to my sister’s house last year so that we could make a trip to the States to see our children. We vacationed in Hawaii, met the beautiful girl who will be our daughter-in-law and had the best time with our grand daughters.

 

 

The news when we came home was not excellent. Mummy had a scratch in the corner of her eye and that had seemed to get infected. One or two doctors who came to see her seemed to be worried that it was something serious. Well finally we put her into a hospital where they did a biopsy and it turned out to be Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. So that has been preoccupying us all this while. Meantime I completely forgot about the blog. I know in December I wrote a note saying I would restart but then was not in the best of spirits.

The side of her face started swelling and looked red. This is what disturbed her regular doctor. He felt she needed some testing or treatment. We had no idea how to even start to go about this. Many advised no intervention and that seemed wisest at the time but gradually, the sight of her facial distortion was making us think she must be in distress and pain, however, unable to tell us. I was having difficulty believing anyone could get cancer at the age of 84 anyway. At first, after registering her for palliative care with The Cipla Foundation here in Pune, who have a research facility and carry out treatment free for cancer patients, we also accepted the idea of not doing anything invasive and letting the illness take its course. Meanwhile we did talk to people asking for recommendations on some course of action as the worry about her condition became all pervasive.

She was also eating poorly and had lost a tremendous amount of weight.

Then one day Uday decided to go see a Cancer specialist at Ruby Hall Clinic’s Cancer facility and he said look here this thing is curable.

Of course she is old but we thought chemo treatment would likely kill her before the cancer did. Jeanne came here, we conferred and said it would be injustice not to try to do something. Ultimately we decided a date with consultations and were told to admit her for a day every three weeks or so and she would receive a ‘targeted’ injection.

This would usually take the whole day. At first the doc there told us that one injection would be sufficient. Then he said at least six should be given and then…but there is a lot to describe and I will come to that next time.

2014 in review

Here is an old photo of Mummy. I plan to add more to this blog….many things have happened but she is soldiering on….

 

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 28 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

What’s Going On?

What’s Going On?

This is a picture of an injured 70 year old Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Punjab who was beaten up by goons. His name is Dr Dharmvir Gandhi and he is standing for elections from the State of Punjab. I am rather caught up and distracted by the news and the attacks on these candidates and their supporters. However, slowly the party’s volunteers with their refusal to be violent in return, like true Gandhians, have managed, especially in the town of Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh where the big name ticket of the BJP, flush with funds and goondas, is standing opposite Arvind Kejriwal, the founder of the Aam Aadmi Party, to charm those on the offensive who are now listening to them and offering them tea and welcoming them.

Well no need to recount again what this Common Man’s Party is all about but to see the philosophy behind those who carry out attacks and contrast it with the ‘spirituality’ that India is said to personify.

But here are some photos to get an idea of how elections take place. There is much more from other parts of the country but I have a few pictures and those I thought I would post today.

This is a supporter and volunteer who was sitting with others in Varanasi when some BJP goons attacked them.

This poor guy was beaten up in Amethi, by Congress goons.

And I guess you get the picture.

This election has been the biggest scandal that this country has been inflicted with. We have a parliamentary system with very unparliamentary members of the polity who are so shameless and unsound in everything they do. The large section of people who never figure in any consideration of the mainstream parties are being drawn to this revolutionary new party that may sound naïve but is as the Hindu newspaper quoted  are a very dangerous group for those who have no understanding of the term ‘democracy’.

So we wait till May the 16th when the results will be out and we will know whether goons are going to run the show or whether someone better is or whether there will at least be a good opposition party. Because the Aam Aadmi Party is here to stay. They have done plenty in such a short time but they will have time to breathe and strengthen their base and their footing whatever the result. It is so heartening to see how they have enthused the many professionals, social workers, activists and other ordinary people who cannot fathom the level of mischief and wicked deeds that go on in the name of governance and politicking. Ever since the present government enacted the Right To Information Act by which records of public works and others can be applied for and challenged and made public RTI activists are being murdered all over the country.

Right now I am a bit heartsick because even to write about this gives one a feeling of ill health and a bad headache but things must be done sometimes.

You know, I remember my mother in the 1960s talking about an important election and it’s result. She was always arguing and discussing the country’s state and the political scenario. I got sick of things some years ago and just opted out but this time I have to be somewhat involved, if only writing a blogpost.

I would like to add a photo of the gentle mannered Arvind Kejriwal and here he is:

My Mother’s OK

This is a damaged but fairly good photo of my parents from the 1960s. It is the festival of lights, Diwali and they are celebrating with other Anglo-Indians. We celebrate a lot of festivals but now that we are so much older ourselves there are THINGS TO DO!

I have been wanting to write about Mummy’s bedsore for a long time. There are a few people following this blog who have elderly parents they are caring for so this could be a bit of a dialogue in case I have made some mistakes in treating it and in case I can give some insights into the treatment of bed sores.

First of all we panicked! The lady and I who discovered it on the 1st of February. It was a ghastly sight, a large crater with flesh gouged out it seemed, and oozing some liquid. It was a Sunday morning so our doctor was not on call but I ran to the internet to check and my heavens, the news was bad. Apparently it can be fatal if an infection sets in. The mistake all this while was in thinking that it was a bad form of her psoriasis and so Neosporin powder was being liberally applied. It had a large scab and during a bath the scab separated to show the crater under it.

She had been eating poorly for months, refusing solid food and my sister had been at her wit’s end to figure out how to tempt her to eat. I am not anywhere near as good or innovative a cook as my sister is. She became so upset about the whole thing which was just not at all her fault. Sharada had been on a months leave and the substitute lady had not been able to keep her as well tended.

Anyway Monday morning the doctor came and looked at it. He said it was pretty bad, prescribing some medical ointment, changing of position constantly and lots of protein in the diet.

After a week of this treatment we were really very much more worried because nothing seemed to have changed and there was quite a bad odour too. So we asked him to visit again. Apparently it was the ointment that had such a rotten smell because as soon as it was discontinued things were fine. This time he prescribed antibiotics and suggested we get her an air mattress or a waterbed which would relieve pressure. We had been changing her position and also making her sit up in the wheelchair. Mummy has a weak right leg so she has difficulty in turning on her side and lies constantly on her back, even sleeping in this position. The bedsore was on her lower back, where probably the pressure was the most acute.

So then it was tackled on a war footing, as they say. The diet was discussed with Dr Anwar and he said give her egg and fish and chicken. So that was on the menu. She needs vegetables and fruit so that was on too. And milk and cheese helped. Her eating regimen was reversed. She now has a soup which is actually dal and daliya (broken wheat) and vegetables cooked with something green and with a little ginger and garlic, salt and pepper and then liquidized. This is her lunch. She may have some sweet yogurt or ice cream or fruit after for dessert. At night she has more variety. She gets more interested in eating by the early evening, that’s why soup is the afternoon meal now. She is ready to have her milk and cookies in the evening and then either the scrambled eggs, French toast, pasta or tuna fish sandwich which is my repertoire for now. Well the diet helped I think. She gradually gained her overall health back and is now more mentally alert, speaks a bit and says some things in protest now and again.

We got her an air mattress which has pockets in it which fill and empty at different times so that the levels continuously change. Later, he suggested an inflated ring on which she has to lie with the affected part inside the open space of the ring to relieve all pressure on it. By now about a month had passed and he was satisfied with the progress. It had dried up, the slough that was forming had stopped and new flesh was growing inside the edge of the crater that had itself shrunk. he had prescribed a liquid antibiotic which was poured inside to reach into the inner recesses of the sore.

Now our job is to see that a new bedsore does not develop. It can cause septicaemia and this is fatal to bedridden patients. There is a lot more that is scary and of course bedsores should be dealt with urgently on discovery and never, never neglected till there is no trace of them and for this turning positions of the patient is vital.

That is the situation now so everyone is relieved, needless to say!

I would really be happy to gain new insights into this problem from any angle, diet, treatment physically etc. I may have forgotten some things but in discussion maybe it will come to mind. Oh yes, we used a diet supplement called Ensure. I am not sure about this because some people say these things are scams but maybe people can enlighten me.

 

Song of Hiawatha

Today my eyes are feeling very strained. I think I’ll just put some more photos of my garden and retire to rest them.

Is there something wrong? WordPress is not letting me upload pictures!

The problem with my eyes is that I wear only reading glasses and if I have been focusing close up for too long then my vision gets blurred for a while.

OK, not the garden, let me find some other photos I keep taking.

Nope, no pictures being accepted so I am a bit flummoxed.

OK how about a poem?

A random page from The Song of Hiawatha. How well did Stevenson know the Native Americans I don’t know, and how well were they represented in this poem, however, it is the most lyrical of blank verse that I’ve read. I don’t know too much poetry, though I read it a bit.

“And the merry Laughing Water

Went rejoicing from the wigwam,

With Nokomis old and wrinkled,

And they called the women round them,

Called the young men and the maidens,

To the harvest of the cornfields,

To the husking of the maize ear.”

So then I finally retire. Our house is hot and unpleasant. I checked on Mummy and asked how she was feeling about this awful baking we are going through. She says she is not warm at all. Her room is protected from the afternoon sun but the building does radiate heat at night. These are the bad days of summer. May is worse. Then we start looking out for the rains. I find that she is losing appetite due to heat maybe, so I made her soft scrambled eggs and a cheese toast which she ate thank goodness.

And I am on a diet! That is, reduced intake! Let’s hope it can be sustained.

Gardening Zen

This post is about something I am pleased to have accomplished. And that is making compost from scrap. It was a pleasing two hours I spent yesterday, mixing soil from the nursery with the rich, healthy smelling compost made over the last six to nine months. I had two containers going and when they were full of kitchen scraps, garden clippings, eggshells etc, I just forgot about it and when I opened it yesterday to find out how it was faring it was ready to use. I made some good looking mix and then in the empty container started off a new process. I also have a lovely terracotta container in three parts which I bought here in Pune. That will be the next lot I use, but not for months.

I bought a croton and some pink verbena yesterday. They look so colourful and gorgeous next to each other.

So lots of photos today. Most are fresh but some are from when the plants were flowering and have now been pruned.

I bought the hens and chicks plant and have to pot it into a better container. For now it is standing happily next to the mixed mini garden.

Here is the verbena looking rather flashy!

The variegated Schefflera now has bigger leaves than when I bought it, my good soil of course.

The taller plants work as screens for privacy but do not block the breeze.

Tht’s the principle at work in the bedroom balcony too but in summer the sun is fierce and the plants are really under stress so have to be maintained carefully. I have pruned some and cut some for propagating so there is a bit of an empty look. The view, not so clearly seen here, is of the solar panels on top of the serviced apartments called Oakwood, opposite our place. I am so pleased with the sight always.

This is on the living room balcony. This piece of furniture used to be in the kitchen but when we had a pantry built it was moved out here to hold plants handsomely.

We call this money plant. Is this some kind of philodendron? anyone?

Newly planted croton. I am so in love with the colours.

here is a close up of the mixed soil and compost (the darker bits).

I stopped pruning this vine which gets pretty tiny blue flowers like mini morning glories but it is now refusing to flower and just going wild all over the place. That’s OK for now.

Here’s one of my containers for making compost – just an old wastepaper bin. That’s new stuff being put in to rot!

This well made terracotta three-piece container is for making compost. I bought it from Swacch, an organization in Pune which teaches and assists in the correct, eco-friendly way to deal with waste.

Here it is with the upper compartment open to show the top layer of garden dry leaves and such. I do this to prevent smell and insects from getting into the kitchen waste. Please do remember never to use cooked food while making compost.

This section onwards are old photos of plants which have now been pruned. They will look lush and flower in a bit of time.

This was something I learnt from Pinterest. I cut a tomato in quarters and buried it in soil. It gave up some pretty seedlings and turned into a vine which gave me about twenty seven tomatoes. I was really pleased, I was.

Lastly, this is my Buddha garden which I made after seeing something similar a friend had done.

And this here is what I can see if I sit in my armchair by the door and look out. Not a bad sight, as far as I’m concerned.

My gardening implements consist of an old kitchen knife, my kitchen scissors for light pruning. I cannot work with gloves, they drive me crazy so I just let mud get on my hands and then wash them and apply moisturizer. I do have a hardy pair of secateurs though and they are used well to keep things in control otherwise there would be a jungle out there. It’s all very hit and miss though and I have had to learn from many, many mistakes. I have learnt a lot from Pinterest. There are gorgeous photos pinned which inspire a love of garden growing, lots of hints, lots of good advice and ideas.

I’d like to tell you all that my sister has a gardening blog. It’s on wordpress too and it’s called oxygenforthesoul.wordpress.com

 

Liebster Award!

Liebster Award

I am so very thrilled to be nominated by Lydia Devadason for the Liebster award. And pleased to get it a second time. Thank you very much Lydia.

Lydia has these eleven questions for me to answer:

1.What inspired you to start a blog?

  I really do like the interactive nature of blogging. You don’t just write, you know the minds of your followers and you admire theirs and other’ writing and photography and other skills.

2. Do any of your close ‘real’ friends blog?

    No, but my sister does and one friend in Australia is thinking about it.

3. Have you had any strange, embarrassing or frightening blogging experiences?

    No, none at all, thank goodness.

4.If eating at a restaurant, what would be your favourite meal – with or without dessert?

      Probably pasta with some vegetables and a cheesy sauce.

5.If money was no option, what would be your perfect holiday destination?

     I would love to go to Italy on a luxurious holiday.

6.If money was no option, what would be your perfect evening’s entertainment?

     A nice experience of theatre on Broadway in New York and then a great dinner. I don’t really have very fancy ideas!

7.What’s your favourite word?

     I think it’s a swear word and that’s “bloody”.

8.What quality do you think friends appreciate most in you?

     Possibly I’m uncomplicated.

9.What personality characteristic do you find the most off-putting or irritating in others?

      Not being able to admit or compliment someone’s talent.

10. How would you like to be remembered by those you care about?

       As someone who cared to let them be themselves

11. What is your favourite holiday destination?

     My children’s homes in the US!

My nominees for the Liebster Award are:

1. Journeyman

2. The Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker

3. Laxman Prajapati

4. Presents of Mind

5. Confessions of a Readaholic

6. The Fallen

7. Just Some Dish

8. Broadside

9. Quoth The Wordsmith

10. Just Be V

11. Ana Linden

Nominees these are my eleven questions:

1. How difficult is it to think up eleven questions?

2. Did you grow up close to grandparents?

3. What is your favourite film?

4. Do you spend too much time online?

5. Where is your favourite famous monument and what is it?

6. Do you like to remember friends’ birthdays?

7. Do you vote in elections?

8. What is your favourite breakfast dish?

9. What is your favourite non-primary colour?

10. Have you ever been on a cruise in a ship?

11. What do you think you excel in?

And that’s it. Hope you enjoy this all as much as I have. Now I have to get down to letting you guys know!

I am having problems with getting connected to my nominees…something wrong somewhere. I will try to let you know as soon as I can.

Food, Blessed Food

Today I had a look at how much I weighed and got a terrible fright. Hugely overweight. How has this happened I’m moaning and complaining, I hardly eat anything (not true of course), why have I started putting on weight? And other such nonsense.

I wanted to write about how we have cured the, or should I say the one and only bedsore, so far, that Mummy has had to suffer. I will write about how scary it is to find one and how to treat it but I have got completely distracted by this weight issue.

The reason maybe that she developed this sore was that she had lost a lot of weight at the end of last year, was refusing to eat, and was really bony. Maybe a pressure point developed because of that. On discovering it we went into action and had to work out how to improve her food and her appetite and her nutritional balance.

To give her vegetables and fruits is all very well but she has to want to eat them. As you can see from the photo, the dish looks pretty bland. But in it I’ve added all sorts for flavouring, some ginger and garlic paste and some coriander leaves, some pepper and salt. She does not like chilli. So that’s one meal a day which she has without trouble only if I blend it and she can drink it down.

I got this tin of supplementary food powder so that I could add it on days I was uncertain about how well she was eating. As I’ve already said earlier she has porridge of oats in the mornings with a mashed banana in it.

She likes this fruit so it’s easy to get through breakfast. They get ripe rather fast in the heat and we have to keep buying them every two-three days since more means I have to turn it into cakes and banana bread, all of which she eats with as much fuss as anything else. I want to try semolina porridge too if she would eat it.

Other fruits I have to disguise and put together with ice cream in her dessert section! Or I make a milkshake – that is when I add the food supplement because a milkshake does not feel like much food.

And I have been giving her eggs and fish too. Sandwiches, scrambled eggs and tuna fish etc.

And making cakes and cookies and pasta. That’s the whole problem.

She likes pasta, but I LOVE it. I make such a large quantity so my mother gets enough and then we sit down to dinner and that’s it, appetite (mine) overcomes all sense of proportion and common sense too. And I have been making carrot cake, soft, smooth, yogurt and sugar carrot cake, for her, er, me. I think I’ve consumed more than she has. I’ve made chocolate bread pudding and banana and chocolate chip bread, and cookies with butterscotch bits. The chocolate bread pudding I last made when my kids were at home and it is really easy to just have helping after helping. I have not been taking pictures of these goodies. Food pictures are very dangerous for me. When I’m looking at photos of those fabulous baked dishes on Pinterest I get up and go looking for something in the fridge. My friends are consoling me by saying it’s your thyroid, or it’s hereditary or whatever, but I think it’s my mother’s diet.

I wish she would like these things as much as I do. Or that Uday would polish them off, but no, they are just nibblers. Well, not to be too unkind to myself, all these treats HAVE made Mummy better, even if she has them in smaller quantities than I do. She is certainly more lively, more articulate about what she wants or not. If only I had more self control. Carbohydrates and sugar together are my undoing.

My daughter called today and when I told her my weight I got such a long-distance firing from her and ordered to the gym and to exercise and perhaps try, at least, to control my hunger pangs and shrink that tummy and along with it appetite. I went downstairs, raced around the building till I was sweaty and tired and hot, it is this disgusting summer that’s making me even more inactive.

I am of course, in a quandary, how to keep giving Mummy the kinds of food that have obviously made a difference to her and yet eat less of it myself. I’m thinking about it. I think checking weight regularly is part of the way to control cravings and obviously, doing much more activity. Suvarna is on leave so I have been a bit more active housework wise, otherwise I tend the garden, make beds, clean the bathrooms and tidy up or clean closets, do my sewing and altering, etc. I don’t think this is very hard work and I am thoroughly ashamed to admit it. I cook mostly in the early evenings after she has gone and I have the kitchen to myself, or at about eight o’clock after I come upstairs from my so-called walk. I like to keep cleaning as I cook and she does everything afterwards, so the counter is full of a million things and I find it confusing. She does not like the trips I keep making to the kitchen if she is in there so we give each other space.

I am sure that I can conquer this problem. Others have done it, including a blogger I follow who has just run the London marathon. It needs a fresh take on the whole business of eating and this blessed food is not going to get me to be a useless lump. I am going to note the nutrition as well as the calories consumed, and, basically, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. That is a note to myself. Wish me luck.

But before I go, HAPPY EASTER. Have a really blessed day.

(“Blessed” is a common adjective used among my community in place of say, “cursed”…it’s a way I guess of being genteel or something, from days gone by and was very common to describe some nuisance activity or thing especially when I studied in Convent schools, long, long, long, long ago).

Election Day Blues

So I didn’t get to vote today and neither did Uday, who got out at 7:30 to go check voter lists. He got back around 10 a.m. and we let Sharada go to vote. Lakshmi had the whole day free so both of them managed to vote. All my friends here did too. I joined Uday after Sharada got back and we went from polling station to polling station looking for our names. Some had one Dhavle, some had none, some had a longer list of them, some a few, but none of those Dhavle’s were us. Needless to say I was very downcast and sorry that I did not get to do my duty as a citizen…through no fault of my own.

Polling usually takes place in government schools and teachers often do voting duty. They sit all day at tables with lists of voters and in the sweltering sun were exchanging chatter and being very sprightly about it all. I managed a few photos. In one booth I got yelled at by some policemen – for some reason in India, you can’t take photos of official things and processes. I asked why but there was just general yelling. I waited and took one more and then there was hell of an eruption but I calmed the police guy by saying I was writing about my experience in a blog! He was quite OK with it, but just gave me an official scowl for the record.

It was quite something to see the spectacle, only it wasn’t much of one. There were no long queues, no hundreds, let alone thousands of people so one wonders about this wave, really, that our media is predicting. However, in one place I did notice that the paper we have to sign before we enter for casting our vote had a number of exact same signatures. That’s all I got to see of anything untoward, and I wish I had got a picture! In this booth where there was a long list of Dhavles, the lady would not let us scrutinize it, and a guy who was willing to help got shouted down, really shouted down by her. I wonder why!

I spent time looking and asking for our names too and Uday tried because he speaks much better Marathi, it’s his mother tongue, but no joy anywhere.

This election official asked us to go and check in a certain place “one last time”….I wonder why “one last time”!!!

On another unhelpful note, a police van driving around with gimlet eyes on innocent folk used a microphone to authoritatively chase off men who were trying to make a good day’s living selling cold things like drinks and ice-creams and sugar cane etc. I got a photo there but the guy was chased off in no time as the van approached and the police inside started scaring them out of shape. In India people who sell things by the roadside are a menaced lot.

This is the road that we live close to, usually very busy with traffic going by at speed.

It was a really horrible hot day with the only pleasant thing being hardly any traffic. I got some street shots as we were cruising about from booth to booth hoping our names would turn up somewhere. The tables everywhere were besieged by ten-fifteen people asking where the hell their names were. One worker said please find my name soon as I have to get back to work.

That’s a sugar cane crusher in the distance. I was one harried woman today. Even my husband kept hurrying me so I was desperate to get pictures that showed the scene as I saw it.

So that was that. The electoral process as we call it here is still going on and stretches into next month. On May the 16th votes will be counted and we will know what is going to be the result of this huge operation. I was going to vote for Professor Subhash Ware who is an Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Pune for the Lok Sabha.

I got this photo of Professor Ware from the AAP facebook pages that I have been following. He is a soft spoken, very distinguished person with a lot of experience in working for social causes. This party has attracted hundreds and thousands of people like him, people who are tribals and have worked in human rights campaigns and have suffered awful indignities, people like Medha Patkar who is an eminent social activist, people like a top policewoman Kanchan Bhattacharya, who a TV series was made about and so many, many, others. Out of the picture are the many people freely volunteering their time and who exemplify citizens who want to work for the betterment of the country by not just criticizing but by joining politics to make things work by their efforts.

The Aam Aadmi Party is distinguished by these Gandhi topis that they wear saying “We are the common man”. They have captured the imagination and enthusiasm of many people especially social activists, middle class folk and also some people in varied artistic and corporate positions. But their main supporters are the huge amount of working class and the huger underclass of people who get totally ignored. They have found something that resonates with their lives in the rhetoric of the Aam Aadmi Party candidates. The criticism is that they are “inexperienced” but then shouldn’t we give them that experience?

This is a new party, fighting for their right as political representatives with an anti-corruption plank. They do not have the funds like mainstream parties have, nor do they have the support of the media who mostly behave as if they do not exist. That is why I read articles from Kafila, here on our very own WordPress and have a link for you to see if there is anything we can possibly do in the future if  not now, for making our election process, and in fact any political process, free of corruption and lawlessness.

Under the Banyan tree in the distance are the people who sit with the lists of voters. There are plenty of folks shooting the breeze as well but most are there to vote and go. Up the road is the polling station where there was a decently long line. And where my friend, who had been on the phone to me while I was sleuthing  around, finally found her name. Lucky her. And that reminds me, my friend Lucy was listed as Lucky Fernandes, so I wonder if I was there hidden under some pseudonym.

It is not a happy ending of a long awaited day for me and my husband but we plan to give it such a fight to see that we are on the rolls as soon as the registration starts again, this June, we hear. And there are still some 28 days to go during which I’ll be cheering on this party, which by the way, I have become a member of.

To end my story today perhaps this link to the Kafila story will make more sense and give an idea about how society and officialdom sometimes go hand in hand to prevent honesty and openness in this hugely populated ‘democracy’ they call India.

http://kafila.org/2014/04/16/democracy-dies-in-mewat-should-gurgaon-elections-be-countermanded-vivek-sharma/

Creating Stuff

Today is the 15th of April. The day after tomorrow, our state, Maharashtra, goes to the polls for the General Elections and I hope to vote if all goes well. I will have a lot of interesting things to report that day. Of course we will have to make sure that someone is in the house with my mother when we go out because if queues are long we may be waiting some time there.

In the meantime, I have photos of things I do and have done some time ago which is a collection of some handiwork. The first photo, sorry it is so blurred, is of a small pillow I made with our initials in large and our names worked in smaller alphabets. It’s neat to tuck under one’s neck while reading. There are other photos of things that I like doing. Firstly, it saves a lot of money making stuff and then, you can use things you have around the house to make things that go together. First up another set of pillows. We call them cushions in India. These are in the living room.

I have some old photos of a sampler bag I made years ago and named it ‘floor of the rainforest’. It has some imaginary botany though.

I make hand bags quite often and keep them carefully!

This one is made from a shimmery fabric and has sequinned flowers applied. These days I store precious things in it.

I made this one in the US using a tote I bought from Michaels and a fabric paint pen.

Below is a textile piece made from pieces of a sari sewn onto a thicker base fabric and edged with embroidered strips and with four chain stitch triangles completing it. It is a contemporary take on traditional textiles. I use it as a piece of glamorous fabric to drape on my sofa.

A floor cushion made from drapery fabric and using embroidered pieces with metal trimming. It is stuffed with cotton wool.

A dress I made for my grand daughter a few years ago. I have made many but the pictures aren’t all available.

This is a drawing done from an advertisement for hand-cream or something.

A dress I knitted for my grand daughter while in the US. My American nephew in law was the only one of the younger generation who knew anything about knitting and it was such fun to have him listen to me explaining how I created the ruffle at the hem, how many stitches I cast on and so on!

I had an assortment of handmade glazed tiles and used them to cover an old table which was falling apart.

This is a picture I made for an empty wall by using printouts of the background and of the sketch from the Internet, put them together and into a frame that was lying about the house. I rarely throw anything away.

We were going to a wedding with my small grand daughter. I made her a silk Indian style dress and since my daughter did not want to put metal on her ankles (silver anklets) I made these out of some trimming. She was enjoying a good snooze at the wedding when I took this photo.

And that’s it for now about what I fool around doing with my time.