A learning curve

In the past few weeks, as I have been helping my older sister to get help since she fractured her wrist, I have discovered how confusing accessing the help some of the 'Providers' offer is especially for an older person.  One Provider offer this and another Provider offers something else and I wonder how a person without friends and relatives to speak on their behalf copes with the ageing process. 

So I decided to try and find out what support is State funded and what is Commonwealth funded. I think I have only scratched the surface so far but I have been able to at least make her unit more secure which is especially important as we have a high crime rate amongst our children and early teens as they are breaking into homes to steal keys to take long-saved for and much-needed cars for a joyride which often ends up with the car being torched. 

The door shield guard isn't really this grotty looking.

My sister has a personal alarm now which she can press in case she falls and so we had to find a way to make it easy for the Ambulance to access her unit if needed and a  friend told me that her mother had a Keysafe installed. I was told by either a Provider or My Aged Care to ring Yellow Bridge about getting it installed so a young chap from there met with us yesterday to talk about what is available in Queensland if you are registered with their Home Assist program. 

If you are on a pension you are probably eligible to register and be entitled to $500 a year for labour costs e.g. updating your security by installing cameras etc. The pensioner has to provide the product but there is also a one off $80 for 'materials' such as the Keysafe which cost $55 and there is $25 left over for locks or something else that might be needed. The labour cost comes out of the $500.

We learned that some of the young children breaking into homes are burning the Security Screen Door Shield Guards with a tool so that they can then loop something through the hole in the key if it is still in the security door. Then they are halfway in. We learned a few of their other tricks of trade which was quite daunting. A security check of your home is also done and suggestions are made about how security can be improved. We are signing up for Home Assist too now that we are getting older. I am not sure what is available from Yellow Bridge in other States though. 

Strange things are happening in the garden as a Day Lily is flowering at the wrong time of the year. 

Strange holes appeared in the new netting I put over the peas as they were growing through the top of the smaller netting I had on. I am wondering if it was a bird that made the hole. I think a possum would have fallen through. 

I had to take a photo of the shadows that appear in the morning. 

I am marking all the bulbs that are flowering so that I know where they are when they have died back as I want to move them. Most seem to be jonquils and I have discovered that there a number of different types of jonquils which I had never realised before. However, I think the flowers in the above photo are snowdrops. They definitely will be moved as they are growing amongst the broms. 

The leaves from the pecan nut tree have been put in a wire enclosure to make leaf mould down the track. I would love to get up the tree and cut off a few limbs but would probably fall and fracture my femur or something I guess. It seems to be what happens to older people. Now to find someone to do it who doesn't charge a small fortune. Getting old isn't for the faint hearted but we can always learn something new can't we?

Have a great week everyone!

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