January was not a great improvement as far as chaos was concerned, and I was too busy to take photos so this bit is without illustration, I'm afraid.
On December 31st I moved into the flat I rented in Manchester; it is tiny but it is furnished, has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a washing machine and a dishwasher (those were my main criteria for choosing a flat, apart from needing to be a short walk from my son's house and not on the ground floor because I would be alone until March). The bedrooms aren't a bad size, it's the fact that the kitchen is part of the small living room, so the dining table is minute and squashed into a tiny area and when I use the recliner part of my sofa, my feet touch the television.
A couple of days were spent moving in and buying the things of which I don't have duplicates. I didn't want to empty my house in Oxted, as I wanted to be able to return there from time to time without worrying about whether I had taken something essential up to Manchester. Like most people who have been married for any length of time, I have plenty of surplus stuff, like cutlery and plates and mugs and saucepans, and towels and bed linen. But who has two doormats? I was able to borrow a TV and stand and a vacuum cleaner from my son, so no major expenditure was incurred. Also Manchester has some excellent 'pound shops', so it wasn't hard to buy anything I lacked.
Once I had moved in, after three or four days we drove back to Oxted so Paul could get ready to go skiing; he was planning to be skiing in various places from early January to late March, so I would on my own in Manchester for almost 3 months. His itinerary included Breckenridge, then Whistler and some other ski resorts in Canada, then Copper Mountain, and finally Utah. I'd normally go too for at least part of the time, but decided supporting my son and his wife was more important. I'm a pretty crap skier anyway, and not likely to improve much at my age.
After Paul left for Breckenridge, I caught the train back to Manchester and started an early morning regime of getting up early, walking to my son's house and taking my grandson to school. He's at nursery now, one of the youngest in the class as he won't be four until the end of April, but he loves going to school and likes all his teachers, who are mostly very young and pretty. I collected him at 3.15, and we usually went to the playground in the nearby park for a while before heading home.
The new baby was due on January 26th, and we all hoped she would make her appearance early, especially since I was obliged to go to London on the 27th to attend the AGM of the organisation of which I am still a Director. In the ordinary way of things I would have given it a miss, but on this occasion, due to several resignations during the year, I was actually the only elected Director - the other 3 current ones had been co-opted during the year and had to be confirmed by election at the AGM. Also some of the attendees seemed to be alleging inefficiency of Directors and inattention of the auditors, so it was bidding fair to be a difficult meeting. In fact it was all highly unpleasant, and I am glad it is over now.
Sadly, the baby did not make her appearance early and my daughter-in-law was taken into hospital on her due date to be induced. My new granddaughter was born about 3am on the morning of Jan 27th, though I wasn't able to see her until the following day. Visiting hours are only from 2pm until 4.30, and by 1pm on the 27th I was on a train down to London for my AGM.
After a meeting which not not particularly easy, I spent the night in Oxted and travelled back up to Manchester next morning, arriving at lunch time and going straight from the station to the hospital to see my new granddaughter. She was able to go home the following day, and that was the start of real chaos.
She refused to sleep in either a cot or a Moses basket; she slept only if somebody, preferably her mother, was holding her. She was also wanting to feed very frequently, sometimes every 20 minutes. By the beginning of February, my daughter-in-law had done a week with virtually no sleep and was a complete wreck with a grey face.
Of course I had experienced no such thing because I was in hospital for a week and, though you had to feed the baby every 4 hours, the nurses took him away in between times so you got some rest. And he was sleeping in a cot by himself in the nursery, so by the time you got him home, he was used to sleeping alone and being fed every 4 hours. I never really did demand feeding, even though I breast fed them both until they were completely weaned - 8 months in the case of my older son and 9 months for the younger one - and I don't think I would have coped well with the constant feeding.
I don't remember the end of January too well. I did wish my husband had been there to help!
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