Friday

I arrived at The Home to be told by Reggie that Mum was asleep.

“Snoring so loudly that I was going to kick her out” he added with a grin.

As per usual, I went up to see her in case she was at all responsive.

She wasn’t. She was, indeed, snoring loudly.

On my way there I had bumped into Lily in the corridor. She asked me if I was alright but she looked concerned.

“Be careful when you go up there,” she warned me, “I think they’ve been fighting.”

“Oh good grief!” I said, “I’ll just sneak through and hope they don’t see me!”

“Well good luck with that. You’re twice the size I am and they saw me!”

When I got to the rear lounge the only person there was Eleanor. She was cuddling one of her soft toys and had a face as long as a fiddle. Never a good sign.

I did wonder later whether, if harsh words had actually been exchanged, Lily herself hadn’t been involved. But then both Audrey and Shirley were missing and their bedroom doors were closed. Perhaps they were the culprits. The case against Lily was dismissed due to insufficient evidence.

I met Al on my way out. I asked him how my legs were looking today given the comments Eleanor had made yesterday.

“They don’t do anything for me Nick!”

“Oh, do you think I should wax them?”

He laughed. We agreed that Eleanor was a real character.

“You should hear what she says to the Tai Chi instructor!” he said.

I dread to think.

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