Friday, 19 January 2007

I arrived about 9:00 am. Everyone had a story to tell about yesterday’s storms. After hearing a few, I began work on some correspondence and organised some meeting dates.

At 10:00 am, I met Priti (Bookkeeper) for her second Review meeting; there were many things to discuss about the new accounts procedures. Then at 12:00, Sue (Office Services) and I visited the Guideposts Trust to meet with Katie and Simon and view some of Simon’s excellent art that we soon hope to display at 140 The Parade. At the same time, Lorna of the Guideposts Trust was at 149 The Parade delivering a lunchtime seminar on Mental Health awareness.

After I returned to the office, I met with Maria (one of our valuable volunteers) to discuss some work with her and talk to her about a job application she is making.

At 3:00, I met with Des (Connexions Personal Advisor) for his annual review meeting, then talked with 3rd Base about the installation of Volbase this weekend on our server. For weekend reading, Anne (Funding Advisor) gave me the paperwork on our Reaching Communities application - my telephone interview is on Monday and I need to be prepared. I then spent an hour or two getting papers ready for the weekend. Despite some long days this week, I’ve still not managed to finalise the papers for the 1 February trustees meeting. I’ve another busy week next week, so I plan to do some organising this weekend.

The best laid plans

I arrived home in WGC at about 7:00 am. Jackie and I talked about going to visit my Dad at the Lister Hospital. But it was late, and we were tired, and decided to wait until Saturday. As far as we knew, Dad was fine and just waiting for an appointment with the physiotherapist before being discharged.

Then I noticed I had some missed calls from my brother Jez. “Dad’s taken a turn for the worse, can you call me?” I did and got the bare bones of what had happened. Within half an hour, Jackie and I were at Dad’s bedside. Mum had just left. Dad was asleep. His breathing was regular and we didn’t try to wake him.

We spoke to the nursing staff who explained the situation: it wasn’t good. Up to Wednesday he had been getting stronger, then sometime on Thursday he took a distinct turn for the worse and his blood pressure had fallen. Their investigations revealed a blood clot in his leg and liver failure. They had discussed this with my Mum and had ruled out any medical intervention and it was just a matter of time.

Straight from the hospital, we went to see Mum; she was shaken, but was handling everything very well.