Saturday

Lesley had been at her dad’s all day so I was later than normal getting to The Home. The day shift were all signing out and rushing to get home, the senior nurses were still doing their handover and the night shift were changing into their uniforms so I didn’t get to speak to anyone.

Mum was still asleep when I got to her and it took two attempts to get any response from her. She said she was alright when I asked how she was. So she definitely knew someone was with her but there was no clue whether she knew it was me or not.

I think she went straight back to sleep. She was certainly totally unresponsive. She did move a little to make herself more comfortable so while there was a chance she was still in that space between awake and asleep I told her about my day, read a chapter and started an Alexa routine to play relaxing music before heading back home.

Bibliography

Tales from the Parish: 31 humorous short stories about community, family and village life, set in the English countryside

Kindle Edition

by Stefania Hartley

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