Out there in the community

OK, apologies for such a long time between posts. Amazingly, I've been busy. I haven't taken many photographs of Nelson either, since we seem to have been going from appointment to appointment (with lunch or coffee snuck in there these days) rather than on social outings per se.

There was one day recently when Darius discovered the remote control for Nelson's bed and insisted on actually folding the bed pretty much in half - with me sitting on it! Both Nelson and Darius thought it was hilarious, and played peek-a-boo underneath the raised up bed!


Saturday week ago, Nelson came to the Orange Grove growers market with Darius and me for the first time. All the stall holders who have been asking me about his progress for almost a year now were really pleased to see him and I was surprised at how well he coped with the crowd. He chose several things to buy (food of course) and proceeded to assemble a simple lunch at home afterwards when I went off to put Darius to sleep.

Mark came by with a little birthday gift for Darius, and Nelson read the new book to him after he woke up from his nap.

James, Allan and others have continued to visit Nelson very regularly and help in general.

Birthday lunch

Nelson was very lucky - Kuen took him out to lunch the day after his birthday. They went to the fishmarket and Nelson obviously enjoyed himself!

Happy birthday Nelson

Nelson's birthday is on a very significant date, of course. We had a lovely party for him, hosted by Mary Anne and Peter (pictured right) at their lovely entertainers' house.

All of Nelson's children were there and many important and close friends. It did have to be kept relatively small, but Nelson coped well with around 20 people there, quite late in the day.

Lotto was jackpotting at $20M and Nelson was absolutely convinced we would win it. He tried his best, but to no effect apart from a slight singeing to Mary Anne's table and the complete destruction of an oven mit.

Nelson received some lovely gifts - many of them books which he is still wading through - thank you!

Thank you to Isobelle for most of these photographs.

Marlon had made a lovely card for Nelson

A very Chinese attempt to influence the Lotto results that were jackpotting on Nelson's birthday...

I was very happy with the catering if I do say so myself!

James is normally behind the camera, so this is a rare picture!

Having his say

Richard visited Nelson on Tuesday and Nelson told me how good it had been to see him.

On Thursday I took Nelson to the speech pathologist to finally complete the assessment started a couple of months ago.  He did well enough that he will be starting a trial of fortnightly speech therapy sessions. It will be interesting to see what improvement that brings.

Today was polling day for the federal election and Nelson insisted on voting. He could have been exempted  on medical grounds, but was insistent. He actually got the nurse at the home to phone me so he could ask me when I was coming to get him, "to do that home thing" (vote). Good on him!

When we got to the polling booth he had no idea at all on what to do, so the official handing out the papers and I explained it between us. I think Nelson thought it was all a bit of a strange process.
 
When I got Nelson back to the home Brenda and Rhonda were waiting for him there, and they had a lovely time out on the balcony with him.

Visit home

I brought Nelson home for a visit today.  He said he needed a new book to read and I assured him he'd find one at home.  When he looked through the book shelves he was amazed, and asked me why all these books were here. I told them they were his, and when he looked puzzled I realised that he couldn't remember living here.

After I explained it all, he then remembered on his own that he had also lived here before going to Switzerland.

He then wondered around the main room looking at things, recognising his own computer. He found a lovely backpack in the corner and picked it up, saying, "That's nice!" Naturally it was his. He opened it and was fascinated to find all his work things in there. He had to ask me what the papers were and didn't recognise the name of a company he'd done work for. He then found a folder with information in it, including a list of professional skills. He read down the list exclaiming at how brilliant this person sounded and eventually worked out they happened to have the same name as him. I then told him it was a list of his own skills that he'd written about himself. "Really?! Do I really do all these things? Wow!! Really?"

He danced to some of his favourite music loud on the stereo.

 Brenda and Elaine arrived to visit and cooked gluten free pasta for lunch which Nelson ate with gusto.

Lunch with twins to be

Today we had yum cha with James, Russell and Callista. Nelson hadn't seen Callista for several years and was just delighted to find she is pregnant with twins - "one of each".

We had a wonderful chat and Nelson lasted longer in the increasing noise than anyone thought he might.

Of course he very much enjoyed the food too! He and Callista took great delight in sharing chickens' feet.

James was nice enough to bring a proper camera along and take this shot.

Sunday roast

Nelson visited Isobelle and the children at their house for the first time.Given a choice of food for lunch, Isobelle says "he opted for Australian Baked dinner so that's what we had! We all sat round in the short thunder storm and Nel ate a large lunch."

He told me the next day that he'd had good chats with all the children and really enjoyed his time with them.