What A Week It's Been...

Mum is still far from well and mobility is poor and pain is bad when she attempts to move. We will have to see how things go and whether things can improve and how we adapt. Also whether we end up having more check ups and treatment.

Unfortunately, a couple of days ago, I had my own little emergency...

In some ways very unexpected...

I rarely attempt to climb any kind of ladder, I shouldn't. I am unsteady but sometimes you cannot always ask for help such as when a light bulb blows...

This occasion I needed some food moved around a kitchen cupboard to a lower shelf and I had almost completed my task when the step ladders decided to collapse from under me suddenly without warning.

I don't know in retrospect how I avoided smacking my face on the kitchen sink unit and possibly knocking myself out or breaking my nose, losing teeth but I ended up on the floor across the step ladders and floor and I honestly thought that I had broken my legs, they still feel very strange(as though someone had taken a hammer and whacked my legs with it)and my knees(that's another story)and I had skinned myself and was bleeding.

I thought that I should be checked out at hospital maybe I still should be but how to arrange for Mum's care if I was away for a while.

Anyhow, I rested. Over the following days I have had aches and pains in places I didn't know existed, I am sore and hurting, have bruises coming out and still may have damaged something and may still get checked out...thank heavens for rest and pain killers.

I have I believe got off very lightly considering. I hope that I have...but my lower back has been aching so that may be an extra injury caused by the fall, if so I hope it's temporary and not going to be an on going problem. It would be awful if I have caused a similar problem to what Mum did last year when she fell downstairs.

Those step ladders will be going onto the rubbish tip.

I have purchased some step ladders with non slip mats on each step, they have a tubular steel frame, they should be much safer and allow me to reach the cupboard and replace light bulbs as safe as I could possibly do and they also have a hand rail and the design should not allow for any repeat of the accident. But I will not be using them very often. Hopefully, I can ask for help.

Can anything else go wrong?

Well, yes...I knew(and we have talked about doing so for ages)our electric cooker needs replacing but we have delayed buying a new one...it doesn't look good but it works.

However, yesterday as I switched on one of the hobs to cook some soup, all the electric around the house went off. So now I will have to buy a cooker reasonably quickly but I know it will take a week or two to choose one, arrange delivery and have it installed. In the meantime the thought of no hot meals wasn't appetising.

The good news is that part of the cooker still works but in case the whole cooker fails I have had to purchase a microwave oven, I have managed to go through most of my life avoiding them. But I guess it's policy to have one for those unexpected breakdowns.

I did not go for the most expensive or powerful wattage but it looks pretty good and has reasonable reviews. Lack of space in the kitchen means it is not the largest but with only two of us and the speed microwave allows...simple meals can be done and if we are doing something a bit more complicated we can do each meal separately.

I will always prefer using a proper cooker and I don't really believe you save much energy or how much it will cost when the bill drops on the mat. I boil vegetables in the minimum of water and most meals do not require an oven but again everything cooks quickly.

We all have strange weeks where things seem to go wrong and this was one of them.

Other things have happened(not worth mentioning as yet...I hope) If that changes I'll certainly have more to say...