Its been a stinker of a week. Today the temperature reached 35 degrees C and the worst is still to come with 38 over the next couple of days. What fun to be in Athens and not near the beach.

I continue to go not-so-quietly insane with all the crap that landed in my lap suddenly. I lived most of my life in Australia, thousands of miles from my family and all responsibility to anyone but myself. (I liked it that way!) Now I’m buried up to the eyeballs in it. Responsibility up the wazoo, decisions to make, paperwork to organise, you name it, I got it.

Making it worse of course is that I’m in a country that not only doesn’t make sense to me, having lived in a civilized country for most of my life, but that doesn’t make sense full stop! Add to that that the paperwork is all in greek and you enter a whole new dimension of f%”kuppery.

I speak greek fine, I read greek ok, I write greek badly. But forms in medical or legal language are doing my head in big time. And I’m in charge of finding, collecting, photocoping and putting together a ton of it to give to the nursing home and the solicitor. Oh boy, am I having fun!

Today the heat just about wiped me out. I got home from running around all morning and virtually passed out till Aunt 1 woke me up asking none of us cared at all and if we had all forgotten her. sigh. It was all I could do to walk Lainee and grab a frappe to wake myself up before coming to see her so I could open the windows and dust her bloody bedside table cause she’s well enough to be annoyed by the dust.

I did manage a couple of positive things for myself today though… I took Lainee for a long walk up the hill once it cooled down a bit which helped clear my mind a bit, and I reworked the latest two paintings.

The cut fig is still not quite right, but the others are much better. Overall I’m happier with it now.

I had a play with the sea urchins using the image transfer medium and some newsprint. I’m not entirely happy with the result. It didn’t transfer all that well and in some cases the paper wouldn’t come off as easily as they said it would and I ended up rubbing off the paint as well…. and almost made a hole in the paper at one stage!

Lesson: not a good idea to try to transfer over a painted image. Unless you seal it first. Maybe.

I love the look of the print on the urchins, don’t like where the medium wouldn’t come off and left marks. Still… for an experiment, not too bad.

I do love the print inside the image. If I can find a way to work that and incorporate it into my work without the globs of paper which refuses to leave I’ll be pleased. Then again, if I can’t find a way to do that I’ll find a way around it!

z

If you don’t know what OFFS is don’t worry… I’ll give you a hint: Oh for f^&£ sake.

So, you know how you think things are getting better but they slide right back to crap again?

Since yesterday I’d noticed Aunt 1 getting better. She no longer cries out when she gets in and out of bed, sits on the toilet or on the stool to eat. She still whines and moans but things were looking up. Or so I thought…

Then she called me three times today, each time starting the call with something along the lines of: ‘don’t you pity me at all?’ or ‘come down here or I’ll fall over and kill myself’ or similar.

Once down here I have the pleasure of hearing how no one cares for her, God no longer loves her, she can’t take it any more, none of us understand pain, why can’t we call a doctor, she will pay whatever it takes (it took 100 euros for one to visit the house – she’s on a 400 euro a month pension to put that into perspective), why can’t we take her to a hospital, are there no decent doctors in this country, what kind of government is this anyway? why don’t I have someone who can take me to a doctor? If only my dear husband was still alive, but died young (he died at 82) he would have taken care of me, why couldn’t I have fallen and died, where can I fall from to kill myself…

The obvious answer to that is ‘from the roof… think you can make it up two flights of stairs?’

I really am not cut out for this but there’s no way I can let mom have anything to do with Aunt 1 ever again. I’m younger and healthier and I’m already on the brink of losing it.

I just wish I didn’t feel guilty and sad that she’s in pain and has dementia otherwise what I really want to do is leave her a note saying ‘you pissed off Zefi and she left.’

You know, it wouldn’t be so hard caring for her if it wasn’t for the accusations. She never asks something, she accuses. If she simply said ‘Did you give me my meds this morning?’ or ‘Did you call the doctor’ I could handle it. but its always ‘You never give me my pills’ and ‘No one cares enough to call a doctor.’ I kind of can’t help but lose it.

I did notice that while she wore a mask at the medical center she was quiet… think she mask trick will work a home?

I’m sorry to bore you with it. I’m simply not cut out to be a nurse. Just ask Wayne. When he had surgery I sent him to friends to recouperate. I couldn’t handle the abuse people in pain hand out. I am a bitch!

I’ve tried painting again. So far I’ve done 4 small watercolours on paper. I’m only sharing 2 of them cause the others are woeful and talentless!

I’m so not used to working on paper at the moment. The marble and rocks I’ve been working on the last month or so aren’t porous and don’t absorb the paint so I can work in layers, even with watercolour. The paper sucks it all up and I have less time to play with colours. This is one I did yesterday. Its flat and dull.

The second one I did this afternoon is better. Its on acrylic paper rather than watercolour paper and maybe that’s better for the way I’ve been working. I think that if I’m going to work on paper I’ll have to start using acryics again. Or pastels which is my preference.

I love the way the watercolour pools on the acrylic paper. It gives it a crisper more vibrant look. Much better.

Stay tuned for more experimental art! (hopefully)

z