Read it Yourself with Ladybird Collection 50 Books Box Set Pack (Level 1, 2, 3, 4)

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Alone, you start to live in your mind. On a blowy November afternoon, her lounge neighbour, Joyce, had her feet gently placed in a foot bath. Joyce looked out to the spot in the middle distance where she often looks, if she’s not talking. Mary looked at her. “Joycie’s at the seaside,” she said. “She’s got an imaginary knotted hankie on her head.” Joyce didn’t hear, or chose not to. All institutions offer some form of infantilisation, with their timetables and structures. In a care home, it is only more pronounced. The routines, the activities, craft sessions and singalongs, the tactful management of incontinence and naps: it is all a breath from nursery school. There are kind people, mostly women, doing things for you, sometimes talking to you as if you don’t fully understand, washing and feeding you, if you need it. Value: Curiosity and learning Family and friendship Following advice Health Helping others Initiative Kindness Sharing Taking part Teamwork Trust and honesty Understanding others Understanding our world Working hard Falls change everything. You don’t realise, when you’re young, what a fall can do. How much it can hurt, when you’re old. It’s not just your body but your mind. You start to think you can’t do things. You’re scared of moving about.

The Little Mermaid is a Level 4 Read it yourself book, ideal for children who are ready to read longer stories with a wider vocabulary and are keen to start reading independently. Read more Details Grammar Skill: Adjectives Adverbs Conjunctions Past continuous Past tense Phonics Prepositions Present simple Present tense Pronouns Questions Questions and answers Simple past With Derek, it all fell away. They were consumed by each other. They tried to be respectful. They were never found naked in the hall, at least, but they made noises once or twice. Other residents complained; the carers found it awkward. Jacquie and Kerry had to be drafted in to have some words with their respective elders: if you’re going to do things, shut your door and keep the volume down.

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Read it yourself with Ladybird is one of Ladybird's best-selling reading series. For over thirty-five years it has helped young children who are learning to read develop and improve their reading skills. Read it yourself with Ladybird is one of Ladybird's best-selling series. For over thirty-five years it has helped young children who are learning to read develop and improve their reading skills. Mary wanted to know everything about him. What Newcastle was like; how life had been on board a ship. They sang together on Saturday mornings. They watched sport. Any sport. Football, men’s and women’s. She liked to point out how the women passed more. Athletics most of all. If it’s true that as we age we gradually regress, Mary and Derek had, perhaps, reached adolescence. It matched how Mary felt in her head. She often said she was a young person in a bashed-up body. In her mind, she could get up and dance for you. With Derek, they could play at being young again, in a way, mooning at each other all day long because they had no other obligations. They could fall in love like 16-year-olds: the love of people with no responsibility.

It’s different, meeting someone late in life. You know you won’t have long, so the love feels more urgent. It’s closer to first love, though it’s probably the last. There’s none of the logistics that can cloud a relationship in middle age: who’s doing what, who’s paying the bills, who’s cooking. Mary and Derek had nothing to do, or none of those things anyway. The days took on a new shape. Derek would sneak down to Mary’s room as early as he could. And yes, they were intimate. Not the whole way, but the desire was intense. You don’t stop feeling those things just because you’re old. Derek didn’t seem to mind her body’s various betrayals. She could give you a list: The Little Mermaid desperately wishes to be human. What happens when the sea witch grants her wish? In 35 years of running a care home, said Carol, they’d had maybe a handful of couples getting together, but it was usually just to sit with each other in the lounge, or at meals. More like a friendship; keeping each other company. Not like this. Mary and Derek hadn’t reached that point yet. In fact, Mary insisted on doing things for herself, and encouraged others to do the same. She had a little rule: she’d only help someone cut up their food if they’d attempted the task at least twice by themselves.

Now she knows it’s possible to get up from your chair, walk across the room and die right there in the doorway. So she can’t indulge that illusion any more. Her father, who worked for the Bank of Scotland, had rules. Mary would not wear trousers. She would go to the local school, not the paid-for one, like her brother. Mary’s mother would not have a job. It would be humiliating, suggesting that he couldn’t provide. Her father was the head of the household; he made the decisions. Oh, it was a fine thing to be a man. Mary was one, briefly, in a school play. She had to draw a sword. Her body felt different; a kind of uplift. Mary’s happened at her daughter Jacquie’s house. She’d moved there after a few years living alone, then in assisted accommodation. Finally, at Jacquie’s, she fell on some hard slate tiles in the bathroom. Soon, she couldn’t get out of the bath, so Jacquie started bringing her into Easterlea once a week to wash. Without him, without the distraction and company of him, she depends on other things to enliven the daily repetition. Spillages, stumbles, visitors. Someone will come in to see their mum. Everyone stops by Mary’s chair to have a chat. She’s the hungriest for interaction. Sometimes, the staff will put someone in the chair next to her because they know she’ll talk to them. Before he arrived, she had been simply trying to survive. Do three new things a day, she’d been told, or was it three new things a week. Keep the mind going. Do puzzles. Move the body. Then suddenly there he was, singing.

The Gingerbread Man is a Level 2 Read it yourself title, ideal for children who have received some initial reading instruction and can read short, simple sentences with help. Read more Details February, this year, a winter’s day, fish and chips for lunch, so it must have been Friday. Mary and Derek were sitting in their chairs, as usual, talking about something, probably what they’d watched on the television or read in the paper. Derek said he needed the loo, because they always told each other what they were doing, and he got up and said he had to see a man about a dog, because he was always saying things like that, funny sayings. Old Brown has taken a book that belonged to Peter Rabbit's dad. What happens when the rabbits go to an island to look for the bookIt wasn’t that the home didn’t feel real. It was more like a parallel society, where life moved a little slower and with greater gentleness, according to established routines. A cup of tea in bed at six, a wash, breakfast, coffee in the lounge at 10, lunch at 12, a cup of tea at two, an afternoon activity, high tea at four, telly, another wash, a hot drink, bed. When a room came up, Carol offered it to Mary. It made sense. She didn’t want to be a burden to her daughter. And really, she couldn’t have asked for a nicer place than Easterlea. It didn’t smell of wee or bleach, as these places often do. Her room was at the front, with large windows that looked out on the car park, so she could see all the comings and goings from the real world, as she called it. In this classic fairy tale, a little old woman makes a gingerbread man - but then he runs away! Is there anyone who can catch the gingerbread man?