Retirement "villages" vary

in quality, in facilities, in residents and in just about every other possible way. 

Most of my "aged care" experiences are quite different. I go in and out to see people like the Senior Cat in places which are intended for those who can no longer cope with caring for themselves. They are not happy places. As one of the local priests once said to me, "They are God's waiting rooms". Perhaps they are. 

It seems to me they are pretty grim places. Even with the best and most caring of staff and the best of facilities they would still be places where people go, to put it bluntly, to die. I don't like going in and out of them but I do because what I like even less is to think that people don't get visitors.

But yesterday I was taken out to lunch to a "retirement village". It has been built on the grounds of what was once known as "The Home for Incurables".  I once knew that appallingly named facility far too well. I went in and out at least once a week for years. At times it was run on hospital like terms - and many of the people living there needed that amount of care and attention. It improved a little to a more home-like status later. One of my acquaintances could go in and out using her electric wheelchair and would meet me in the street. We would head off to a shop on the nearby main road and she would replenish her tapestry supplies.  Like A.... the shop is long gone but the owner was very good. I'd go in and say A... was outside - and unable to get up the steps of course. If not serving someone else the owner would come out with something new for A... to try. If she was busy she would get me to take it out. A...was outstandingly good at tapestry. The owner of the shop would sometimes ask her to do small jobs for her, repairing, finishing and once an entire chair seat. It gave A... some purpose in life, something to concentrate on other than constant pain.

I thought of A... as we went into the new facility yesterday. It was all so different. I don't know how many "apartments" there are in the place now - all of them still very new looking - but there is also a dedicated restaurant/coffee shop. There are the usual tables and chairs at which you can eat the food you buy but there are also comfortable sofas and chairs. People were sitting there reading papers, chatting, looking out at the garden. Other people were moving backwards and forwards. Yes, being for older people, there was the occasional seat-walking aid. Some people moved more slowly than others but they were on the move. It was busy but in a quiet, relaxed sort of way. There was a television set on but the sound was off and the subtitles were up instead. 

People were well dressed, indeed very well dressed. The people who live in this "village" would have had the money to enter it - and the money to continue to stay there. No doubt there are problems but they were not evident in the same way as they often are elsewhere.

The facility is big enough that there is a map next to where we sat. I looked at it. Yes, a library and a craft room both appeared on the map. 

And in a way all this unsettled me. I looked at it all and at the lovely garden outside the big picture windows and thought that this is what everyone should have as they grow older. How much would it help a dementia patient to have a secure garden like that? Wouldn't the quiet surroundings help them? And why wouldn't other very elderly people I know appreciate the surroundings? 

Being taken out to lunch was nice and I greatly appreciated the outing but I did wonder and still do wonder about these things. And I thought of how much A.... would have delighted in it all instead of having to keep her possessions in a hospital like locker.