My Beloved Granny...

Even though my granny has four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, I have always been her favourite grandchild. I do not really know why... Maybe it is because I was the first one? She has always been my beloved granny, too. We have always had this special relationship that I do not have had with anybody else.

I have so many great memories from my childhood years thanks to Her... I remember my granny when I was maybe 4, 5 years old. We used to play this game... She was getting down on her knees and let me ride on her back. I was screaming “faster, granny, faster!” and she would give me rides around her living room pretending to be a horse carrying a princess (me :).

Every time I came over to visit my granny, we would build a house under a table in her living room. We used chairs to make the house walls and a blanket to darken the “house” inside. My granny always crawled under the table to “visit” my little house and a have a cup of pretend tea with me.

She had a big magic box. It was full of buttons... There were hundreds of them inside... all in different sizes, shapes and colours. I used to play with them for hours trying to find and match two or three identical buttons. The box was truly magical to me...

My grandma is almost 82 now. She is in a perfect physical shape. Her heart and other organs are in perfect condition. There is just this one thing... She is suffering from the Alzheimer disease...

She has been on medication for few years now, but the disease slowly destroys her... She has good days but she has also been losing herself progressively... The disease is, unfortunately, degenerative and incurable... She suffers from memory loss and has difficulty in remembering recently learned facts. She becomes very confused during the day and sometimes does not know where she is. She becomes irritable, over-sensitive and moody. She can be very aggressive towards other people and accuses members of the family of stealing her money. She has mood swings and cries with no apparent reason only to laugh five minutes later...

A couple of last months were very difficult for everybody. My granny felt very bad and the state of her mental health was getting worse every day. She was rude to everybody and unbearable to be around. She could not remember who she was, where she was, where she lived... she could not remember whether she got her monthly pension money or whether she ate dinner or not. She could not even comprehend the idea of making herself something to eat... Everybody was worried about her, tired of the situation, exhausted from constantly ensuring her of virtually everything...

We all came to a decision that granny could not live alone anymore. My mom’s sister decided to bring granny to her house in Holland where she has lived for few years. First month was really tough... after awhile my auntie had just enough... grandma was feeling worse and worse... my auntie was becoming depressed, tired of the worsening situation and could not stand it anymore...

Nobody knew what to do... We started considering placing granny in a home for people who suffer from Alzheimer disease. I did some research regarding homes for elderly in Poland… Asked few people for their opinions, I read few blogs and forums… Discussions were highly-debated and, unfortunately, those who have never experienced people with Alzheimer disease and who have never had to deal with many dreadful and shocking situations were the ones who had the most things to say. I am not trying to justify any decision that my family will probably have to face in the future… All I am saying is that those people who really have no idea what it is like to take care of a person with Alzheimer disease, will always have something bad to say against those who have to make such difficult decisions…

Everybody was expecting the worst... We all anticipated that granny’s state would worsen even more... We were just waiting for the inevitable...

After doing some research, my uncle found a private home in our home town... It looked surprisingly good. I was expecting a typical home where elderly people just wait to die... Amazingly, that home is really nice... They have polite, respectful and professional staff of doctors and nurses offering 24h medical assistance... They offer many things for housemates: rehabilitation, physiotherapy, games and activities, tv room, sitting area, a chapel and a church not so far away from the house (which is very important to my granny)... all those elderly people who live there are engaged in many things, they are mentally stimulated and motivated almost all the time...

Because I live in England, I do not get to see my granny very often. That is why I decided to go to Holland and spend some quality time with her. I had booked a flight and, a few days later, I landed at the Eindhoven Airport. My auntie picked me up and we headed home... I was afraid my granny would be in a bad state, that she would not recognize me... But my auntie told me that granny had been feeling better lately and could not wait to finally see me...

The time I spent with granny was precious. She was happy, joyful and in high spirits all the time. Before she started living with my auntie, granny lived alone for few years. And that is probably one of the reasons why the disease was progressing so quickly. And all she needed was a bit of company... all she needed was just few people around her who would make her feel loved and secure...

We decided not to place granny in a nursing home. It would be too fast and it would be cruel. Not now... If her health worsens to the point where we just do not know what to do anymore, then we will see. This thing cannot be rushed. It needs to be thought about very carefully and it cannot be an impulse decision.

So for now, I just want to show her how much loved she really is and I want to enjoy every moment of her happiness and the slightest smile on her face... that is all that matters now...

Skyride Photos

Below are the promised photos from the Mayor of London’s Skyride.

I think either people responsible for taking photos at the designated photo points or those who uploded them later on on the Skyride website must have experienced some technical problems, as we have found only five photos of Slawek and I and only two of them were relatively good enough to publish.

Chiara, however, brought her own camera to the festival and we took few photos as well :)

Lunch at St. James's Park

Lunch at St. James's Park

Resting area :)

C & M

Buzzing Bees

65,000 cyclists on the streets of Central London

Cycling...

Mr S.

SIM ;)

In traffic...

:)

"Great" Day...

I have had enough of this day! I woke up with headache, back pain and sore throat.

If it wasn’t enough, going to work today drove me up the wall… I think Central Line is the worst one in the London’s underground system in terms of crowds, the amount of bad-smelly people and rude idiots.

Morning started bad but evening was even worse…

On my way back from work, I was waiting for a Piccadilly Line at the Hammersmith Station. A strange looking guy was standing at the platform and looking at me. I didn’t pay attention to him at first but after he got into the same wagon and kept starring, I became a bit suspicious. After patiently pretending I was not bothered by him and waiting for him to get bored by the lack of any attention on my part, I changed to a different wagon. One minute later he was standing next to me! I then changed to Central Line. He did, too. I got a bit frustrated. And then I saw him taking pictures of me with his mobile phone!!! That was it!!!

I said with an angry voice ‘What, the hell, do you think you’re doing?!’ He said ‘Nothing…’ I said ‘What do you mean “nothing”?! I just saw you taking pictures of me with your mobile phone!’

He obviously denied that fact and that is when I started screaming at him… I screamed a lot and I screamed very loudly… I told him I was going to call the police and then we would see whether there were any pictures of me in his mobile. And considering the fact that I didn’t know him and he did not have any permission to take any pictures of me, he would be in big trouble. He suddenly admitted that he took one photo and was just deleting it. He got off at the next station. I was really relieved, I must admit.

What a freaking wacko… Filthy, disgusting bastard!!!

I Had A Dream...

I had a pretty bizarre dream… I was flying a jet… a proper military two-seater jet…

I wasn’t a pilot, though… The pilot was 60 year old woman, with grey hair and a very nice smile.

It was the first time I was in a jet (in real life, I can only dream of sitting in one...) so I was a bit anxious and tense. She told me not to worry and assured me I was going to have lots of fun. She manoeuvred the jet in the right position on the runway and asked the air traffic control tower for the permission to take off. The permission was granted and we were in the air within seconds.

I truly love roller-coasters and the more thrilling and breathtaking the ride, the more fun I have. I also thought that not much could surprise me in terms of amusement rides. But that dream... OH MY GOD!!! It was amazing! That pilot lady was one freaky aviator. She did rapid turning movements, climbed upwards, suddenly dropped down and did rolls and loops... The feeling was mind-blowing... It was so strong and so real, I could actually feel G-forces pushing me back into my seat...

That was the best dream ever! :))

Reading Over One's Shoulder...

How many of you have ridden on a tube, a bus, a train or a plain and enjoyed reading a nice novel, a mystery thriller, quirky magazine or simply a newspaper? Pretty much everybody, I assume. How many of you had that weird feeling of someone reading it with you over your shoulder? I would say everybody has experienced it at least once...

Don't we just hate it?!

I was thinking about it the other day. I was observing people on the tube reading some stuff. After realizing someone was picking over their shoulders, many passengers seemed quiet annoyed about it. Some rolled their eyes, others closed their books, some positioned their paperbacks so that “naughty” people sitting next to them could not properly see anymore, and others moved places. I started wondering whether I was acting the same way when someone was trying to read what I was reading...

So today, on a tube, I carried out an experiment. I was pretending to read James Patterson’s novel 7th Heaven and secretly paid attention to those around me. It did not take long before I realized a man sitting on my left was reading the book with me. And, to be honest, I got a little bit annoyed about it... He had his own book so why did he have the desire to look at mine? Was it more interesting? Was it more attention-grabbing? Was it so extraordinary that he just could not keep his eyes off of it?

After thinking about it for a while, I came up with a theory that had nothing to do with any of the above. I simply think people do not even realize they do it. I do not think they consciously want to pick over someone's shoulder in order to annoy them. I think it is a reflex action... It is such involuntary and spontaneous automatic behaviour that people cannot control it. This is the way I see it.

I do not really understand why we get so annoyed by it in the first place... Those who read our books would not steal the letters from them... They would not vaporize from a newspaper... Words written on each and every one of the pages of a newspaper will still be there... answer to a silly question in ELLE Magazine will still be present on exactly the same page even if someone reads it with us... a murder case will still be solved in the last chapter of a psychological thriller even if someone picks over our shoulder and reads it too... So why do we hate it so much? Is it because it is OUR book, OUR newspaper, OUR magazine and nobody has the right to look at it and to invade our privacy?

I do not know... All I know is that every time a have a feeling of someone reading my book over my shoulder, I simply want to look at that person and say “Do you mind?”

Anyway... I have found this Subway Etiquette: The Art Of Reading Over Someone’s Shoulder. You can access it here.

Quite handy, I must say :)

Skyride 20.09.2009.

Yesterday was a day I had waited all year long… The Mayor of London’s Skyride…

Over 65 thousands of cyclists, Londoners and tourists, took their bikes and rode famous, free of traffic London streets.

Slawek and I hopped on the saddles in the morning and headed for Victoria Park Hub (at least that was where we thought the starting point for this part of London was… like last year…) We were really surprised when we realized that there was no hub in Victoria Park… nobody knew where the hob had been moved or whether there were any hubs at all this year… Our friends, Chiara and Mauro, were bewildered as well… We checked the Skyride website using a mobile phone… nothing was mentioned about any starting points anywhere in London… we had no map, nobody knew what to do or where to go… I asked one cyclist whether he knew where the hub was and it turned out it had been moved to Mile End… 7 km from where we were… After few minutes of cycling, we finally found the hub… I was really disappointed… the starting point was poorly signposted and was much smaller than last year’s…

Anyway, we put on green Hi-Viz cycling bibs displaying “Mayor of London’s Skyride” sign and rode to the city’s centre. We started the 15km route from Tower Hill, passed the Tower of London, rode through Lower and Upper Thames Streets, Victoria Embankment, Northumberland Avenue, through Trafalgar Square and The Mall, passed Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Monument.

The resting area was located in St. James’s Park. It was packed with many activities: food, entertainment, music, bike trials displays… Professional BMX and Mountain Bike riders performed tricks in the so-called Street Zone whilst amateur riders could try their luck in stunt riding. You could get a free bike make-over in the Style Zone, learned few tips on health and wellbeing from the members of British Cycling and Nike4Life or took part in a cycle sprint challenge in the Active Zone.

The park was packed with thousands of people lying around on the grass, having their lunches or simply relaxing and enjoying the beautiful, sunny day.

After half an hour, we headed back towards Tower Hill. We posed and smiled for some pictures as we rode past few cameras at designated Photo Points. By the way, the photos were supposed to be ready to download from the Skyride website today at 9am... I think so many people tried to download them that the site crashed... I will try tomorrow again and if I am lucky, I will post some pics from the festival...

Overall, the day was awesome! Over 65,000 cyclists took part in the festival. Bikes and green Hi-Viz bids were everywhere!!! Streets were packed with wall-to-wall riders: moms and dads, grannies and grandpas, kids from smallest to those big ones… couples, loners, groups of friends… clowns on tall bikes, bumblebees buzzing and dancing around amongst the riders, music lovers with huge speakers blasting out tunes, even a piano guy who rode his bike while hitting the keyboards…

The day was simply brilliant and I already cannot wait for the next year’s festival…

Rain... :)

Aren't they amazing?

I have no idea who these guys are, where and when this video was recorded... I would love to get to know more about this group so if anyone has any idea who these guys are, let me know please :)