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Jane’s been caring for her husband, Stephen, who has Aphasia, a form of dementia, for over a decade. Though he quickly lost his ability to speak, they remain inseparable, and have simply found new ways to communicate over the years.
I started to notice odd things when Stephen was 52, and he's now 63. I thought maybe he was a little depressed. Anyway it took a while to discover what it was. But a cup of coffee always grounded us wherever we were, whatever mayhem was ensuing. Just going anywhere and having a coffee and a piece of cake or a biscuit seemed to calm Steven and myself. We found lots of different places over the years. Stepping Out always a blessing to us and it always involves a nice cup of coffee at the end. It just seems to calm any situation down, doesn't it?
Steven became non-verbal quite early on, so just sitting with a coffee had a very therapeutic effect on both of us. We like sitting on the high chairs at the window in the Hythe Waitrose. He is occupied by counting the cars coming in and out and and reading the number plates. I liked just hearing other people’s conversations going on around me, I find it very soothing. It takes away from his words that are a bit like a dripping tap sometimes. He get’s locked into sentences.
“My Dad’s pulled up.
“My Dad’s pulled up.
“Oh you’ll never guess what,
“my Dad’s pulled up.”
They’re innocuous words, aren't they? But if that’s all you’re hearing….Oh goodness me - he’s going to say it again. So to have a conversation going on around you is lovely. It softens what he’s saying actually. Being with other people, really. Because it gets very isolating.
It was nice for me because it gave us time, even if it was just half an hour, to gather our thoughts. If we had some shopping to do, it always seemed to ground him nicely. Because he had a tendency to pace. He would walk incessantly and he was a very fit man. He did triathlons. For me to say to him, come on, let's go and have a piece of cake, it helped me because I couldn't keep up!
In the cafe I enjoy my coffee and hearing the spoken word in sentences and conversations behind me. They also play music quietly, and Steven always loved music. Waitrose is very instrumental in our daily life, even now. We live in a flat that looks over the sea and we've got this big square bay window. I've got a little sofa that's been with us on our journey, and we like to start our day there. Steve sits with his breakfast, looking out at the sea and the cars going past and the children going to school. It's our window to the rest of the world, really.
And yes, we do have particular coffee orders. I like a latte and so does Stephen, but he also likes Americano. It has to be decaffeinated though, obviously. Otherwise that's another issue.
And there's tons of places around here in Kent. You can get a coffee from lots of these little pop-up vans on the seafront. It wasn't at the beginning of our journey with all of this, but as time's gone by, coffee's become much more fashionable, hasn't it? We were a bit ahead of the trend.