Wheee! Highlight of the day

DeborahBlythe

Registered User
Dec 1, 2006
9,222
0
Sticking my neck out here...

... and adding to a thread that has been dormant for over a year, but I just wanted to tell you about what happened today.

I've been working part time in a library for the last four years, a job I took mainly for the convenience of its location close to my mum's care home.

I seem to have become fully occupied with reading to classes of children visiting the library, or singing and reading at Toddler Times.

Today two classes of year 4 primary school children visited in quick succession. I read the same things to both classes.

I read them cautionary poems (Matilda and Young Ethelred)) and a funny poem called 'The Alien in the Classroom'. ( Note to Izzy, don't look this one up!) Also a picture story book of Goldilocks and the Three Bears which was much too young for them really but both classes liked it, and then a Roald Dahl poem about Goldilocks viewed by a jaundiced adult.

The first class were a bit unruly but laughed like maniacs at the funny bits. The second class were very well behaved but seemed to need permission to laugh.

At the end, the second class rewarded me with rounds of applause. I have to say that in all my long working life I have never received applause as feedback and I was quite stunned! Fancy being applauded for something you enjoy doing!

I'm just saying this because, well, the applause was the highlight of the day, and I think my mother would have smiled if she had been there. She was a teacher and used to read to me herself and take me regularly to the library where we lived.

I hope I am forgiven for indulging myself here. There is some light and laughter after dementia, at least in my case.
Love from Deborah x
 

Grannie G

Volunteer Moderator
Apr 3, 2006
81,443
0
Kent
I`m sure the applause was well deserved Deborah, especially if your reading is as entertaining as your writing.

I`m glad the first class were able to show their appreciation too, by getting the funny bits.

And you? Like mother like daughter perhaps? :)
 

BeckyJan

Registered User
Nov 28, 2005
18,971
0
Derbyshire
I love the thought of you reading to the groups of children. What sheer delight for you to get applause :).

There is some light and laughter after dementia
A good thought for those of us still caring.
 

Tess810home

Registered User
Jan 11, 2011
157
0
London
Happy post

This afternoon mum woke from a doze and started conversing with a chair. She turned to me as said "I was talking to a b***** chair!". I know, says I, what were you saying?

Mum replies with tears of laughter in her sweet irish eyes..."I don't know"! We both had a fit of the giggles.

How I love this woman <3
 
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Scraggedbloke

Registered User
Jun 11, 2011
105
0
74
Skegness Lincs
Deb

Humour remains

Thanks for that, "What makes us laugh?"

Annie repeats "No no no", sometimes I can't get though it, but some times I can say, "I'm fed up with No no no, say Yes, yes yes" and she repeats "No no no" and I say "yes yes yes" after several repeats of this sequence I say, "We are having an argument" and she replied, "Yes" and gives a little giggle.

After several weeks of continual "No no no" and other continual anxiety, we accepted an out of area place in an Assessment centre.
Our son travelled with her in the back of our car the long journey as she struggled to get out.
We arrived "after hours" on a Friday evening, we were shown to a lounge and told a doctor had been called to carry out the admission and would be about an hour.
The hour came and went and they kept coming through and said they should not be long now.
They then came through and said, "Doctors here, just reading notes"
We were sat on two settees at the end of the lounge, a guy with long white hair entered the room, nodded to us and pulled a third settee over.
He looked me straight in the eyes and pointing behind the settee he said, "All this has got to be dug up, and the landscape gardeners have got to be paid, sorry but that is how it is you have got to pay them"
He then sat with his back to me and said to our son, "What's your date of birth?" Our son's face was a picture as he said, "who me?" "Yes you"
We were expecting the doctor, we had a patient.
With that I completly lost it, I tried my hardest to hold it in but was making strange squealing noises. my head buried in my hands.
Eventually I had to leave the room, with tears streaming down my face and and trying to contain my laughter, I passed some visitors sat at the far end of the lounge.
As I went through the door, I heard one of them say, "that poor man, he is so upset"
I ran down the corridor to a dead end and nearly affixiated against the fire exit.
It was ages before I could return, I'd not laughed so much since watching the Marx brothers as a child.

Sorry about that I just had to get it off my chest.

ScraggED
 

Christin

Registered User
Jun 29, 2009
5,038
0
Somerset
Hi. I went on a training course years ago and was told that we should all try to have a 'Golden Moment' every day :) They were some days when it seemed impossible but it is something that has stayed with me, when probably everything else I learnt on that course is long gone!

Perhaps my moment yesterday was the face of the carpet fitter, when I asked if he could use an off cut of our carpet to recover the cats' scratch post :D

xx
 

Tess810home

Registered User
Jan 11, 2011
157
0
London
The Royle Familt moment..

Today I had my Royle Family moment. I don't know how many of you have seen the final episide where nanna is having her hair done by her daughter...but today I had that moment.

Was bathing mum and washed her hair, while she was enjoying her lounge in the bath I was brushing my teeth (mum making toothy grin faces in the mirror), then out of the blue mum says, "thanks" very quietly, I almost didn't hear her. I smiled and said "what for?"...."what you are doing" she said seriously....then just as quick, mum returned to her childish play and asked me if I still go to school...no idea who I was again...

That small comment and moment of lucidity means the world to me...not funny necessarily...but moving because somewhere deep down beneath the disease, my mum is still there...

<3
 

DeborahBlythe

Registered User
Dec 1, 2006
9,222
0
Mum's memory is shot to hell...but her humour is still in there and takes me by surprise frequently :D

I'm glad to hear that Tess, and to read that your mum thanked you too. Moments like that are just pure gold aren't they?

Scragged that was funny too. The moment to worry of course is when you are taken in by the patient.:)

My golden moment yesterday (Thanks Christin for the concept! So right!).. I was working at a different much bigger library for the day, and they said they were going to do a little session with a visiting class about Roald Dahl's book Matilda. Would I read a chapter or two to the class?

At the moment there is a musical opening in London based on Matilda which the Royal Shakespeare Company are performing in and there is a little challenge being run whereby children who read three books by next Thursday can enter a draw for free tickets to go and see Matilda the musical.

I was happy to oblige but I hadn't read Matilda before so I sat in my lunch hour skimming through it to see what to read. Then they dropped a bombshell. Someone from the Royal Shakespeare Company was coming down.:eek: I'd be reading a chapter of Matilda alongside a pukka actor or actress from the RSC! To say I was panicked was putting it mildly.

I ran and put my makeup on, determined to give the professionals my best shot. Maybe I would be discovered and swept up into the bosom of luvvie land along a Golden Twinkling Pathway of Fame and Acclaim!

In fact the person who turned up was from backstage and had been sent down to take photographs, so I wasn't overshadowed by proper thespians after all. Phew! Still it was a near thing. :D
 

eskimojo

Registered User
Nov 11, 2011
107
0
Crewe UK
highlight to my day is being woken up in the mornings by my little 13 week old pup ellie and her big sister rosa the greyhound and haveing kisses and cuddles with them both in bed xxx
 

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