Back from work this evening to find Will here. Fab surprise. He drove me [????] round to see LB. Yes. He drove me round to see LB.
We found LB in the living room with his DVD playing on the big screen. Everyone sat around, chatting a bit. Watching the film. Hot Fuzz. Peaceful times.
LB didn’t really say much but Will caught his attention a few times – with mention of Chunky Stan and his work trip to Somerset tomorrow. And Eddie Stobart of course.
50 days later.
I got a call yesterday evening, after visiting LB. Awkward, awkward, awkward. The ensuing discussion erased any memory of the guy’s name or credentials but he’d been in to assess LB that afternoon to decide whether he was being deprived of his liberty or restricted in his movements.
Eh???
He was surprised and shocked we knew nothing of this visit especially as he knew we were going to visit LB shortly after his visit.
Eh???
His assessment involved conversations with LB and two staff members, and his conclusion was;
He wanted to know what I thought about this.
Wordgames. That’s what I thought about it. Wordgames, spin and nonsense.
Some mornings I walk along to the station next to where I work to buy some lunch. And photograph this space. I love the light, the patterns and what people are doing here. Spectacularly compelling. Well for me, anyway. But then I bloody love railway stations.
Rang the Unit this morning to see if LB wanted to come to town with us and have some nosh out. He’d been to the farm on Friday and had been quite chilled over the weekend.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” was the answer. This means no. I rang back a bit later to see if he wanted us to get him anything.
“No, thank you,” he said to the staff member relaying the question.
“Can you ask him if he wants a t-shirt or a dvd, or anything?”
The answer was “DVD please.”
Rich, Tom and I went into town. Tom started chatting about when we’d gone to watch Skyfall with LB. I’d forgotten, but Tom remembered how LB had sat patiently in the dark waiting for the bright daylight fight scenes so he could read his bus ticket. Hilarious. Kind of.
There’s something here about choice and constraint. But also about difference and tensions around making sense of our lives and the social world we live in. I still think of LB as an unlikely ethnographer, but that doesn’t help us understand how he makes sense of his life. This remains a mystery really.
From yesterday. Bit-post. Unfinished through lack of words:
LB attacked a staff member at dinner time tonight. Unexpectedly. For no apparent reason. After some careful but excessive sauce action (tomato and brown) on his plate. This lead to restraint, more restraint and medication. The situation was explained to me carefully in detail when I turned up an hour or so later.
“Er, can you claim for your shirt?” I asked his key nurse, inanely, after my other questions were answered (but left unanswered because there aren’t answers).
There are also no words really to make any sense of this, without falling back on jargon and social care speak.
I saw LB briefly after the debrief (and ripped shirt). He was in his room. I was armed with an alarm. He didn’t say much, just muttered really. I rang later that evening to see how he was, and the support worker (love her) went upstairs to check on him.
“LB, your mum’s on the phone. She just wants to know that you’re ok.”
“Yes.”
“Can I get you a drink or anything?”
“Yes.”
“What would you like?”
“Blackcurrant.”
No buses across Magdalene Bridge this morning as it was closed to traffic for May Day celebrations. So it was a beautiful walk from St Clements, up the High Street. Past revellers on their way home.
A rare ‘Who will buy?’ morning.
The excitement of the trip to the bus museum had worn off by the time we visited yesterday evening. LB was in his room, subdued, having chosen not to go to the farm (again).
Choice eh? Very, very important that learning disabled people can make these choices, we’re told. Unlike many other people, who have no choices in their everyday lives. Yeah, it’s so much better that LB is able to choose to laze about in his bedroom all day (again), than get a good day’s exercise, sunshine, fresh air, hang out with different people and be productive. My arse.
Of course loads of people would choose the room-laze option over working. But they wouldn’t be given that choice on a daily basis. They’d have to (if they could) do something productive. And more than likely want to after a few days.
I’m getting pretty naffed off with this choice charade as you can probably tell.
Anyway. Back to yesterday evening. LB’s bedroom was snug and comfy, with the evening sun shining in. He sat leafing through his Yellow Pages, with bus magazines spread across the floor. Jug of squash on the desk. It was calm and peaceful.
“Do you like it here, LB?” Asked Rich.
“Not really, no”, he replied, without looking up.
Carfax was a lively old space this morning. Sunshine, laughter, chatter and then a loud shout; “Oi! Stop eating that bubble gum!” The chunky hound under scrutiny assumed a “Who me?” expression. Soaking up the sunshine.
Some photos from today’s outing. A museum full of buses, brilliant colours and an amazing selection of mannequins. Overall; a bit spooky, very shiny and more than a little nerdy.
Day 40: The day we took LB to the bus museum
Got a call from the Unit yesterday asking if we wanted to take LB to the nearby bus museum that he loves. TAKE HIM?? Pick him up and take him ourselves?? That’s a ‘Y.E.S. We’d love to‘ kind of answer. It wasn’t open yesterday, and he declined our offer to take him somewhere else instead, but today Rich, Tom, Owen and I scooted round, picked him up and headed for the museum. It was great. The museum’s very quirky with a lot of very shiny old buses. We sat in various buses and coaches, chatting, remembering visits to museums and holidays from years ago. The outing was rounded off with sausage rolls and ice-creams in the cafe. Fun and fab.
“By the way, Margaret Thatcher died”, said Tom, as we pulled up back at the Unit.
“Why?” asked LB.
mydaftlife 