I contacted the Village Financial Officer today  to have a chat about what fees and bond I could expect to pay when my wife accepts a offer of residential care. I was  pleasantly surprised to be told that I would not have to pay a bond. The monthly fees will be based on my wife’s assets and I would have to fill out a form listing all those. That form then goes to Centrelink and they will inform me what the fee structure would be. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that my personal assets (i.e my personal pension fund) are not taken into account in the calculation.

Today has been a very pleasant spring day with blue skies and lots of sunshine. We took the opportunity to go for a drive to Sorrento in the afternoon. Prior to that we had a busy morning. Wednesday is the house cleaning day, changing bed linen day and catching up with some laundry. Everything went very well with my wife vacuuming the carpets while I cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms. The laundry was hung out to dry by 8.00 am and back in and ironed by lunchtime. I kept thinking back to this time last year when I had never switched on a washing machine and never ironed a handkerchief let alone a shirt or a large fitted sheet. How things have changed. (I still can’t work out how to neatly fold a large fitted sheet though)