OK, because I’m a Christian my everyday life start with a prayer and my prayer is, Lord give me widom for today, give me some strength and some understanding. That will set me off for the day. If I have widom and understanding and strength I can go through the day. And don’t take yourself seriously, try and laugh at your mistakes.

So, I gather the church is very important to you and part of your community?

Very, very spiritual. Spiritual, physical, mentally, it is very, it’s another support network, you know, it’s another support network. The Bible said when two or three gathered in my name, I’m there also. And so, I think when you’re going through things and you’re sharing, you are so surprised, because if I phone, if anybody phones or if I put it on the chat that I’m not feeling well, I’m bombarded, people bring food, soup, everything.

Oh, that’s good.

You know, so sometimes you have to be quiet about [laughs].

Gets too much?

No, yeah. So, it is good, people will visit, people will call, people will send messages. So, I think the church is very, very important.

You know, we, we try and help and it’s good, it’s good for my memory, because people always be phoning me and say, “Don’t forget you’ve got this poster to do, don’t forget you’ve got this to do,” and that, and I’m thinking you’re all killing me. But it keeps me going.

Yeah, I like doing little things. I challenge myself to, I’m challenging myself with Photoshop at the moment but it’s doing my head in.

So, what, that’s a new skill you’re looking at?

Yes, to learn a new piece of software and see how I can use it and that, so. And I’ve started learning piano in February.

Oh. 

I missed a few lessons because I’m poorly, but.

Oh, that’s a fun thing to do.

So, how do you manage; do you have, do you have sort of tips and some ways of making sure you remember and get all those little jobs done?

What my psychotherapy tells me, if it’s in the front of your head you will remember it. So, what she says, “Try and put dates, do something wherein you remember, you will remember what you have to do.” So, I thought OK, if somebody says, “Right, I need something for the eighteenth.” OK, I’ll put it on, say “oh so-and-so’s birthdays on the eighteenth, oh OK” so I’ve got the eighteenth in my head. I’ll start it and make sure that I start everything early knowing; and sometimes for days I keep saying “OK, I’ve got this, the eighteenth, the eighteenth.” I keep repeating things to myself sometimes, you need to be starting now so you can get things finished and, yeah. I sometimes write things down but I never know where I put the pad or anything. I’ve got loads of pads about the place and I’m thinking I’ll do a shopping list, and then I’ve got to the shop, where’s my pad gone? It’s not here. So, or I’ll take it, forget I have the pad in there and buy everything that wasn’t written on the pad. So, I just laugh; if you don’t laugh at yourself, you know, so. I keep saying to somebody, “I think I’m enjoying my memory problem” [laughs] because if you don’t remember anything [laughs] you can’t get in trouble [laughter]. Oh…

Well, that’s one way of looking at it, isn’t it, yeah.

Yeah, I say sometimes I don’t remember things and it’s trivial and sometimes you think “God, if I did remember that” so-and-so, but, so no.

But, so your, so your tactic is to try and sort of embed it in your head?

Yes.

Rather than rely on writing things down?

Yeah, because I move things around and I never can find them, you know, so. And then what I say to people, “When you send me a job, WhatsApp it.” Yeah, WhatsApp it, I’ll go through my WhatsApp and I know what’s there to be done, but.

Well funnily enough, when the group started, I was ill, so on Monday was my first attend. So, I, because I’ve been looking for something like this anyway, I thought OK, I’ll go, I’ll come along and. It was better than I thought, it was better than I thought, because it was fun and nobody’s dwelling on “I can’t remember this” “I can’t remember that”. We were taught different ways of how to relax and how to move on, not to sit down and think that “I can’t remember this or this”. So yes, it was, and there was people there I know, including family member, so [laughs].

So yeah, I mean people were singing and dancing.

Oh gosh, yes.

And, you know, that looked, that looked fun and quite relaxing.

It was. One of the things that she was doing, when she did the [hand] cream. I could not close- I closed my eyes for a bit but I had to open it because I was so relaxed, I would have fall, fallen asleep and started snoring, so [laughs]. I had to keep my eyes and do that yes.

There’ll be times when I sit down and I’m thinking Lord, let it not be dementia or Alzheimer’s [laughs], but if it is that’s what it is, make new memories, make new memories, do things, write things down.

I’m now saying to my husband, “You don’t know how to use the washing machine, if anything happens to me this is what, do,” and he’s saying, “Write it down because I’m not going to remember either.” So, I’m in the process of writing things down; even, even the television, if you want it to go on that station this is what you do, and all that. So, if I don’t remember it is written down; and I think we don’t write down things enough, we think oh you have to write, oh I had a bad day today, or a good day today; no, got up this morning and I thank God I can see outside, you know, it is a new day, but leave tomorrow’s problems alone, just live for today and you, you’ll have fun.