Monday

I got a bit of everything from Mum today. She started off cheerful enough. I read through all her Christmas cards again and she enjoyed that. When I got to the one from Dagmar she said we ought to write to her. I explained that Eldest Sister had already done that but she insisted we do it again.

She complained of having cold feet. She didn’t feel that cold to me and the room was roasting hot but she felt better after I put some socks on her.

Then the complaining turned to her teeth. I had asked her before whether she had toothache and she had always said she hadn’t so my guess was that this was a memory of the appointment that had to be cancelled when she was first taken ill resurfacing.

Then her stomach ache returned. She’d only just said that it had been OK all day.

Then she moaned that no-one came to see her. I reminded her that I came to see her every day, that Eldest Sister came on Christmas Eve with all the kids who weren’t in Goa and that Brother hadn’t been able to come because they’ve all had rotten colds. She was concerned to hear what a terrible Christmas and New Year Sue had had with COVID and then Norovirus.

The people who were coming to see her all day every day didn’t count apparently.

Once that had subsided she started talking about some incident or other where she’d been blamed for something unfairly and she started to cry. I asked who’d blamed her and she said “Them out there”. I changed the subject rather than dwell on something that was clearly upsetting.

Once she was calm again I made my way home. On my way out I could hear Lily giving Shirley a fearful bollocking because she wouldn’t stop moaning. I’d love to understand how moodiness spreads throughout the home like that. It’s never just one who has the hump.

I was knackered after all that. With all the fireworks last night we didn’t get the dog settled until gone 2:30am and she’d been too terrified to go out all day. There were several attempts made but the slightest noise spooked her and I got dragged back home.

Happy bloody New Year. I’m checking the returns policy on this one already.

Author’s Note

My Mum is in a nursing home in a small village in the Thames Valley. The photo is not of the home. I used an AI image generator to give the reader some idea of the home she’s in.

All, some or maybe even none (you’ll never know!) of the names have been changed to protect privacy and hide real identities. If you think you recognise someone then let me know and I’ll edit the post or remove it entirely