Christmas 2025

 More friends from the Bath Uni 40-year Reunion:

International Man of Mystery there in the background
Nikon N80 on full-auto metering with flash.  HP5+ on Foma paper.

It's been a tough Christmas here in The Liberties.  Great to have Missy home for a few weeks but hard in other ways, notably with my mum who finally accepted that she might be better off in residential care than trying to cope in her own home.  It's a decision I wish had been taken a couple of years ago, since it's been a slow but steady decline in her mobility over that time.  And that has meant a lot more on my plate, particularly this last 12 months.  My photography has taken a back seat, as you can probably tell from the sporadic posting of anything new or interesting on this place.  Anyway, two days before Christmas we took a phone call to say a bed had become available in what is probably the best care home in the area.  What a stroke of good timing.  A couple of days after Christmas and the move was done and I'm glad to say she is (so far) settling in OK.  Part of her thinks (hopes?) that the move might be temporary and that she will be able to return home at some point in the future, but I really can't see that happening.  From what I learn from the staff in the facility that is not uncommon aspiration from residents when they first enter the facility.  I think in time, though, my mum will come to realise that she is in the best place - somewhere warm and safe, and where there are people to chat to as well as make her endless cups of tea and food more or less on demand.  Everything she didn't have in her own home, in other words.