Tuesday 29 June 2010

Fieldwork on Photo

June has become one of the busiest months of the year. Fieldwork on each weekend has lead to more research in the week. It's only going to get busier. However, amongst the needs of collecting water samples for my 'Hydrological Pollution in the Peak District' dissertation and running lab tests for nutrients and metals, I did manage to get some good photos on the classic upland landscape. Unfortunately, there on a roll of 35mm film still, so for now, I will have to make do with the digital ones I have from the actual fieldwork collection and not my attempt to photograph the impossible landscape as the sun laid in to the hills from behind me mid morning. Looking at these I hope the manual setting on the manual aren't nearly as over exposed as these.

Upper North Grain, River Sett and Bretton Clough are all interesting in there own way. Upper North Grain is quite bleak. Open moorland sits on top of the hillside, the peat drains the landscape and pollution rains frequently from the surrounding cities of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Bradford.

Upper North Grain back out to the A57 (Snake Pass)
River Sett on the other hand is way more beautiful, slightly touristy for the campers but none the less couldn't look better if it tried at the moment. The ultimate photo however would require dangling precariously from a tree with the camera attached to a pole to photo a river coming down a hill in a gull, sided by small shrubs and unfortunately in the 100m length drops about 5 metres, how I will get it I don't know yet, attempts so far have failed. (In case my supervisor finds me, I did not break H&S I promise.)

River Sett

Bretton Clough is typically farmland surrounded by plantations and sits deep in a valley. It's just a bit too much like farmland. Also the sheep and horses are way too interested in my field bag. Being accosted by them was never really my intention. The sky was a lot more blue, however, it was really bright and hard to get the camera settings set, oh well.

Bretton CloughIf only that fern was at ankle height. That stuffs 2ft high in most places and grown beyond anything I expected in a week. These almost make the North Downs not look as good, but then again the Surrey hillside cannot be beaten.

Friday 4 June 2010

The Committed Man Part II

Here everyday I return for him. I get him up, bathe him and feed him his breakfast. As a nurse and the closest family member for now I look after my father. He always look at me and says I don't look like Elizabeth. I am Claire, daughter not wife. That picture is of Elizabeth. Thank god I say, he still remembers that, but I worry that one day he will not recognise who she is in the photo frame.

When mum died from cancer, dad took to drink quite soon after. We have weaned him off quite a fair bit, but I still find secretly stashed bottles of alcohol everywhere. It won't be long now before I won't be able to look after him, the man he was is no more. He's gradually fading as the Alzheimer's catches up eroding every memory. He knows a certain amount that something does not add up. You can look in his eyes and see the agony, that look of 'why am I hear still', but even that has faded now. For months he sat dosing in and out of sleep listening to music and just gave me that look of 'I'm too old please let me go'. He knew something was happening, he had all the brains but now without any real body strength, he started losing his mind. It hurts so much to see it happen, just creeping in, gradually taking another part of his mind away.

I can't bare to see it much longer, call me strong or whatever to look after him, but what I remember and tell him he doesn't even know. He just says 'you're not Elizabeth' and banishes me away, he doesn't recognise me nine times out of ten. Sometimes I wonder how we do this. He will be going into care soon because it was only three months ago when he could still make his own meals and just needed a hand around the house with a day carer. Unfortunately, he's become much worse of late, he doesn't eat, drinks what he thinks is alcohol- I've changed it for fruit juice and soup, at least its one way to keep the fluids and food intake up.

Ah, what am I saying, its been so long. I tuck him in to bed now, but he creeps across the hallway back to the living room. He always says its so empty. What he's missing is Elizabeth's touch really. Three years down the line and he talks of running in parks, hmm, his hay day, courting in the late 1940s, ah. I find him listening to Jazz and Classical music from the 60s staring into the fire. Thank god its not an open hearth.

It's so frustrating, I wish there was more I could do, but he needs full time help. He isn't able to understand he's left the oven on cooking a blueberry muffin in a mug (what he claimed was a mug of tea), or trying to turn the TV off with the radio remote control. I find him always in the evening exactly in the same state. He looks up at me asks me when is Elizabeth coming home, but I can no longer tell him she died. He just breaks down, and yet five minutes later were back to square one as if I never mentioned it at all. She's the only thing he truly remembers. There is a photo of me also by the radio, but even with a sticky note attached and a very accurate picture I'm almost non existent. I am the nurse not his daughter to him. Its just a matter of time now really, he's fading away.

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The Committed Man story was developed from a number of real life cases within the family. All of whom have suffered from mental health issues, either from Alzheimer's or Schizophrenia or just pure old age. The story has been adapted from real life to keep those affected anonymous.

Wednesday 2 June 2010

The Committed Man

In front of the open fire, slouched on the small settee I sat. No energy to move, but to take the long poker and prod the fire. Late in the evening the last rain falls before spring truly begins. Cold and miserable outside and yet beautifully drawn from an artists quill. Lush greens and soaking wet flowers, the first shoots of wild flowers don the landscape amongst the wooden hut where I sit alone.

A fresh bottle of Macallan Whiskey sits on the small three legged stool across the room, I'm finishing the last drop of the last bottle next to me. Poking the fire, I finally get the energy to move and cross the dining area collect the bottle and flip the CD player off. Gone the days of vinyl, however good it sounds, they are all degraded and so I listen on the CD's.

Lost in time, the day draws in, back in my settee, the dining room is empty, all there is, is my fire, my table and me. I turn the chair around and grab the TV remote, the oldest looking 15" TV sits on a low table. The whiskey drowning out the wet drip through the ceiling. The fire spitting constantly trying to keep the place from the outside wet intrusion.

If only it was all true, rolled up in thick fleece layers and rugs, crouched under a fire light with a CD playing in the background. A fully furnished dining room behind me and nothing but the loving wife soon to be home. She remains placed in the frame, next to the CD player, a by gone age, and yet still very real. What was once a happy place, now no longer remains. All that remains of that era down the drain with the Macallan. Yet I beg to join her, and yet I beg to not. Rocking away on my settee at all those times, the dining room now empty, all but remains is my memories of a by gone age.

Yet another sip of disillusioned happiness, the wet drip in the room makes the floorboards creek. I look up in hope to see her standing by the door. No, I go back to the memories and play the CD's and commit no energy to the flickering TV screen as I poke the fire and drink away, rocking in ceremony at yet another by gone age.

The nurse comes and provides me my daily dose of medicines to help me sleep, she looks at me as if I'm insane, she says I had no wife and had no place where I poked my fire and yet the photo looks so much like the nurse. She and I have exactly the same conversation: Elizabeth never came today, the Whiskey took her away, she left me this photo and CD.

The nurse smiles tentatively and tells me that it's not real. Everyday of the last 25 years is not real. I look back and say Elizabeth was real you are not real. I throw the current glass of Whiskey into the fire and fall back to sleep. When I wake up I will be chained to yet another bed, drip fed for no reason. The nurse tells me I'm not eating, but I always eat when Elizabeth's around, its just she hasn't come back from her last journey. It takes all day, but eventually I get back to my fire and sit listening to the CD and wait for Elizabeth to come home, the Whiskey can't keep her forever. Maybe I can join her.

All I want to do is go play on the grass as if we were kids again, but my old age stops my legs from doing that, Elizabeth always had so much energy, she always gave me so much energy. We could do so much together. Now I wait slouched in my settee, with my drink, poking the fire as the CD comes back to an end, I hear that creaking floorboard again as the drip from the ceiling wets and dries from the fire. Drip drip drip... where are you Elizabeth, who is this nurse?

The Committed Man Part II