Poor Mum

The day started off not so well with the news - a text from my mother - that she fell at work and was taken to hospital.  It appears she got stuck or tripped, fell on her head, and injured a lower limb.  So those of you who pray, please remember her.  Thank you :)

See, for the past couple of months she has had what seems to be a pinched thoracic nerve and couldn't walk properly on her right leg as well as having poor balance.  And now her left leg is in a cast.  I don't know the details because I think they turned her phone off after the first few messages, but my cousins, aunt and uncle are there for her.  Still, I feel pretty helpless and very terrible.  So instead of prostrating myself on the sofa I thought I'd come here.

Not only did she have a stiff right leg, but her ankles were very swollen for a few weeks.  Plus, during the trip to Canada she was recovering from a cold but as soon as she returned to London she was hit with a nasty chest infection and was put on two consecutive courses of powerful antibiotics.  Trying to open a bottle of cough medicine one night she cracked two crowns.  So for the two months she was off work, she spent going to the doctor for meds and a referral to the neurologist for her apparent nerve problem next week - at the same hospital she was admitted to today; the dentist for temporary additions to her existing bridge and a referral to a periodontist for implants, an appointment she may miss if she's laid up.

So now because she can't climb the stairs to her place, a social worker is going to see her and she may be given a ground floor flat or something.  I hope she doesn't have to quit work:  they have  trained her up only two years from retirement and she likes helping people (she works with special needs residents in a group home).  

I don't know what has happened!  Last summer when she joined me in London she was all fit and energetic and kept going on about how young she feels.  But since moving she has broken down a lot.  The cold grey weather has changed her diet from healthy organic grains, greens, and proteins, to more comforting foods including cream - but she is so well informed about food and supplements, I tell her she should be a dietitian.  She hasn't been able to afford the gym - but she used to be so good I would tell her she could teach classes.  She outspun all the young women in her spinning classes, and younger guys used to hit on her.  I call her condition Englanditis because in all my years growing up there, this is the kind of pattern that I would see with every woman over a certain age there, like clockwork.

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But I am allowed to comfort myself.  I took a shower this afternoon with a selection of lovely things I picked up last week at TJ Maxx.  I may never shop at the pharmacy again now that TJ Maxx has expanded its exquisite toiletries section.

Pure & Basic comes out of California and doesn't even have a website, just a gmail address.  The gardenia and lavender smells gorgeous and leaves the skin feeling naturally soft, clean, and unstripped.  It doesn't foam, it pearlesces.

Beautao also comes from California but of this lot it is the product I would give up first.  Still, bamboo is all the rage at the moment which makes me happy because some types grow dizzyingly fast making them a very renewable resource, and it is a more eco friendly fiber to produce than cotton.  (If you want to learn more, click here.  I once spent hours on this site reading about all the others.)  I have some bamboo sleepwear, underwear, and a bamboo wraparound cardigan - oh, and soybean protein pajamas - I will show you if you want to see them sometime.

~H2O+ comes out of a lab in Chicago and seems to be a decent replacement for the increasingly rare Biotherm products I used to like years ago.  Of course I won't stop using Origins.

Finally, best of all:  Hush Rituals...unfortunately their website doesn't work and the postcode leads me to a business park in Chester, UK.  But the products leave my hair and skin feeling soft and smelling sweet; the scent still lingers in my hair which never happens once the conditioner is rinsed off, and it feels shiny and soft.  After I tried the first soap and lotion set I returned to the store and bought two more of everything else....but what will I do when I run out?

I love loove looove the clean cotton seed and white tea aroma of the soap, and the lotion continues the theme despite the addition of passion flower oil and red seaweed.  They smell like a smoother, more grown up version of the fresh white musk I used in my 20s.  My room spray is...guess what... Egyptian Cotton linen spray with white lily, jasmine, and woody balsam notes from Bed Bath and Beyond.

I seriously wish we had scratch n sniff screens.