Jennifer

Before I came here, as soon as I got the diagnosis, because my view is you’ve got to give Power of Attorney before rather than later because you, then you lose the ability to be, decide and it becomes complicated. But the problem with that is, speaking as a GP, is that some families abuse it, I do know that, so you have to be able to trust your children or else find someone else to act as Power of Attorney, because I have seen it when children have taken all their parents’ money, basically, and it’s not right. So you have to be able to trust the person and if you can’t, or you’re not sure about the family, then you can get someone else to have the Power of Attorney.

But they have given, I mean they have Power of Attorney, all of them and my eldest son is in charge of my finances anyway and the bank knows, you know, so I don’t have, I can’t spend my money irresponsibly because they will contact him [laughs].

I’m not quite sure what you mean, but we looked at things like annuities, you mean, and that kind of thing, yes, and we decided that it just wasn’t worth it, which we’re glad about now, because, yeah, I’m glad about, it, because it certainly wouldn’t have been [laughs] very expensive, I think; I personally don’t think that they’re worth it, I really don’t, but other people might have different views on it. I haven’t seen any that I’ve thought my word, that’s a bargain, because, you know, there’s no such thing as a free lunch is there? [Laughs].

So if people want to go to the shops; we have outings to the local shops every day, Monday to Friday, with our minibus; you have to book for them but they’re free, if you want to go shopping, to different places all the time, you know, morning or afternoon. I don’t go shopping because I can’t cope with the shops, but that’s a facility that people need to know about, and that is free. We do have outings, some of which are free and some of which we have to pay for, it depends what they are. If we go to the theatre or a concert, and they arrange that every now and again; they try and do something every month, you know, two or three things that; we have to pay for the concert but we might not have to pay for the transport, we might have to, it depends. And then we have a lot of activities here many of which are free; I mean we have a croquet lawn, we have a bowls lawn, we have a clubs, you know, which, but they’re run by residents, a lot of them, you know, Scrabble and What Shall We Have and Rummikub and; I run a couple of groups and they’re all free.

[Laughs] well we looked round about where we used to live, because that’s where our friends were, but there was no sufficiently independent living, because it seems, a lot of care homes seem to think the minute you have some form of disability you’re incapable, and if you disable people they get, I think they progress in their disability more rapidly. I think we need to be enabled to live with our disability, whatever that is. People need to do things with us, not for us, and so many places you had all your possibilities of, of living independently taken away from you; you have all your laundry done for you; I mean you can have your laundry done here if you want to, or your ironing done or have your beds made if you want, but you don’t have to, or you can change, you can have it sometimes if you’re not well, it’s wonderful.

Well we pay a monthly fee which, we buy our apartment or house or flat or whatever it is, we buy it, and then we pay a monthly fee, which I think is very reasonable, which covers twenty-four hour porterage twenty-four hour care availability, we have restaurant staff, we have maintenance, full-time maintenance staff, we have a gym, we have a swimming pool, we have a laundry, we have a hairdresser, we have a shop, we have a garden and grounds, and we have to pay for that, of course and that is wonderful; and what I like about it is I do have care, I have a supported package and staff who check on me on a regular basis, but we, this can change as my needs change, where if I’m ill for some reason, you know, I can get a lot more care and help if I need it, for a short time, but it’s the same people. And of course because the staff are here full-time rather than on the district it’s cheaper, in a sense, because they don’t have transport, they don’t have to travel between places, and we buy care in fifteen minute slots.

We looked at dozens of places all-round the country. Well having been a doctor I had, of course, great experience in my local care homes, and residential care homes. I wanted independent living; that was my most important thing; but also, somewhere where I could stay till I died. I didn’t want to have to be moved and so many places you could only live there until you reached a certain level of incapacity and that was not what I wanted; you make friends, you get to know the staff; and in this place the staff in a sense rotate round; we’ve got the main village and then we’ve got a nursing home and we’ve got a more advanced dementia unit, well not just dementia, where people need twenty-four one-to-one care. But the same kind of staff so you get to know them and you get to know the people and having been here so long of course I know people in all these different sections and we kind of mix, I can visit anywhere, which is lovely.