Monday

Mum was slightly more awake, more unhappy and more uncomfortable today but otherwise much the same as yesterday. Awake enough to know I there with her, awake enough to refuse a drink and awake enough to consent to being read to by nodding her head. She was still unable or unwilling to speak.

She was properly asleep in under a chapter of the Tales From The Parish – which I had become absolutely sick of – and didn’t notice when I switched to something else (Ancestors: A prehistory of Britain in seven burials by Prof Alice Roberts)

The only other thing to note was that Lily was wearing two skirts again.

Her family must have brought in some new clothes because they were fed up that she always wore the same thing when they visit. The new suit looked very smart but because she always chose to wear a jacket and skirt that have seen better days she put the skirt from that suit on too. When the weather got too hot over the weekend she stopped wearing the new skirt so it was a new jacket and old skirt ensemble. With the weather having cooled down a bit she was back to both skirts at the same time.

She’s got a wardrobe full of clothes but doesn’t recognise any of them as being hers. She was happy though. Certainly a lot happier than Mum was.

Bloody hell.

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