Hospital Visit

 This is the intimidating door to the ward where Mum is:

Despite Mum having a negative covid test on Thursday, and another one on Friday, she is in the covid ward because that's where all new admissions go! When the hospital is certain the patient is free of covid, and a bed is available, the patient is moved to a regular ward. But apparently Mum is one of 3 covid-free patients in the covid ward waiting to be transferred. It is the same ward Dad was in in April, and he was never transferred out as he was too unwell to be moved. At that time there were no covid cases in the hospital. 

Now there are.

It is a bit scary to know that my 93-year-old unvaccinated (her choice) mother is in the same ward as actual covid cases. 

The view from Mum's room is much the same as the view was from Dad's.  The difference is in the seasons. Then we had grey sky and autumn leaves, now we have blue sky and fresh green spring leaves:

I'm not sure about the view inside the room. I was very worried about what I would be faced with, but in some ways it was not as bad as I had anticipated. Mum was lucid, recognised me, and knew what day it was. I was able to spend a couple of hours with her, including feeding her her lunch. Her fever is gone, as she is on IV antibiotics, but she is not well. 

I am not going to be allowed to visit her again in this ward. If she is transferred to another part of the hospital, I may be allowed to come and visit for care-giving reasons, such as feeding her.

This is the first mobile phone selfie I have ever taken. And possibly the last!

Challenging Times

On Thursday night I had another call from the nursing home, wanting to send Mum to hospital because of her fever. By that time I had had a chance to talk to my sister, and we both agreed that Mum should be left where she was. If she was dying it was better for her to be in a familiar place with people she knows caring for her. So I told the nurse to leave Mum there, and I would come and see her in the morning.

As I was getting ready to visit on Friday morning, I got another call from the nursing home to say that they had just sent Mum to hospital. 

After many phonecalls that just rang out, I eventually spoke to someone in Emergency. Mum was being attended to, but I was not allowed to go and sit with her, as they were awaiting the results of another covid test. (The nursing home had given her one on Thursday because of her elevated temperature.)

Later, Mum was admitted to the hospital, where no visiting is allowed at all. That is part of why I hadn't wanted her to be sent there.

I spent a bit of time soothing my mind this afternoon working on a Christmas placemat challenge that I am meant to have finished by next weekend, but hadn't started.

I got this far today.

Late in the afternoon, I had a call from the hospital to tell me I am allowed a compassionate visit with Mum. I didn't feel up to the drive then, after having had a sleepless night last night, but will go and see her tomorrow.

Wheat Country

Many years ago I worked in an office which had a poster on the wall of an amazing building, the "Stick Shed" at Murtoa. Today I got to go and see it for myself.

The exterior doesn't look too promising:

Although you might get the sense that it goes on for quite a distance. In fact it is 265metres long,

60 metres across, and nearly 20 metres tall in the centre. If dwarfs the humans. 560 trees hold up the roof. It is like a giant rustic cathedral.

It was built during the second world war as an emergency bulk wheat storage shed. When full, it held 3.5 million bushels, or about 92,500 tonnes, of wheat.

You can read more about it at the Stick Shed website. 

We bought lunch from a shop in Murtoa - injecting a little bit of cash into the local economy. On the way back to the car, I got a call from Mum's nursing home, to say that she had a fever and they wanted to send her to hospital. I said I would really prefer them to care for her there if they could. I thought the transfer to hospital, and the hanging around on a trolley for potentially hours waiting to be seen, would do her more harm than good.

To add some variety to the trip, we came home a different way, travelling through three towns with painted silos.

This one is in Rupanyup, a town I've never visited before. I only knew of it from a job I had many many years ago with a wool-buying company. Their silos were painted by a Russian mural artist, Julia Volchkova.

Next stop was St Arnaud,

to see their silos painted by a local artist, Kyle Torney. He has also painted murals on other buildings around the town, which we saw a few of while buying and enjoying icecreams.

The last silo for the day was at Avoca, where the art work is still in progress:

This side depicts a barking owl, and a brush-tailed phascogale is planned for the other side. The artist is Jimmi Buscombe from Warrnambool. When finished, this silo art will also have some glow-in-the-dark features.

While in Avoca we also visited the Chinese Garden:

The garden was a peaceful spot to rest for a while, on what was quite a warm day. Monday and Tuesday both had top temperatures of 10.1C in Lal Lal, so suddenly being in the high 20s was a shock to the system! 

It was a really good day out.

The Garden in November

I keep thinking that we are in October, but somehow the year is getting away from me and it is actually November.

The weather isn't helping. It has been cold and wet (today's top was 10.1C) and I've been wearing some clothing items I bought at the "end of winter" sales to put away till next year. Ha! Winter hasn't left this corner of the world just yet.

Let's start here, with my gorgeous Coral Charm peony:

Daylilies suffering a bit from rain and snails:

The roses are only just starting to flower this year:

This is the pillow section of my "garden bed":

And I forgot to go into the back yard to see what flowers were there. I think this was enough, anyway!

A Finish

 Plaid-ish is quilted and bound:

I haven't managed to finish much this year, but it felt good to cross one project off the list!

If you are interested, Plaid-ish is a free pattern from Kitchen Table Quilting. It is a real exercise in value - you have to get your lights, mediums and darks right to see the pattern. I can see a couple of mediums that were a bit too dark, and some that were a bit too light in mine. But overall it came together well I think.
 

An Outing

Well rugged up, a bunch of intrepid folk went on a hunt for orchids and other wildflowers in Scarsdale and the Enfield State Park.

 

This is a tiger orchid, Diuris sulphurea:

I don't know how they get their common names, because it really doesn't say "tiger" to me.

This one should be called a "Costa" orchid, I think (for those familiar with Gardening Australia)

But it is actually called a purple beard orchid, Calochilus robertsonii.

 

Look at all those coats:

We were lucky it didn't rain though.

 

This was an amazing sight:

A mass of grass trigger plants, Stylidium graminifolium. Found in an unlikely place, an electricity transmission line easement:

This was the closest I found to an open sun orchid:

I think it is a spotted sun-orchid, Thelymitra ixioides. We had no sunshine all day, so it is not surprising the sun orchids were not out.

One of the highlights of the day was finding the rare Enfield grevillea, Grevillea bedggoodiana, which only grows in this little corner of the world:

WOOFA Report

I made a little bit of progress on a project this month, and had one bright idea.

I basted my Plaid-ish quilt top 3 weeks ago, then in the week after that I stitched in the ditch between the blocks, but didn't take any photos of that.

I couldn't really decide how I wanted to quilt it, but yesterday afternoon I thought I better just jump in and do something. So I started quilting some circles:

I'm using my Westalee "Circles on Quilts" rulers. These rulers rotate around a pin, which goes in from the back of the quilt, leaving the sharp pointy bit sticking up. No matter how careful I am, I always manage to stab myself on that pointy pin. But can you see my bright idea in the photo above? The black thing is a rubber pin back off one of my enamel pin badges. No more holes in my fingers! It was much easier not having to constantly worry about where the pin was. I wonder why the company never included any protective stopper for that pin?

I've now quilted about 20% of the quilt, so it will be a while before I can cross this one off my list:

Didn't stab myself once while quilting these circles!

Linked to Cheryll's WOOFA Link-up Party. I'm sure other people will have achieved more than me this month, but I have made some progress, and also solved a problem, so the month wasn't a write-off.