Thursday

It was standard First Wakeful Day of the Cycle fare from Mum this evening. Not very mobile and not very happy. She was a bit chattier than she would normally be at this stage but the only words I could understand were “Don’t leave me on me own!” and then “Have you got any stories?”

It wasn’t that difficult to get Mum to drink. Around 50ml of coffee and maybe half that of squash is good for Mum.

She was pleased and relieved to be told she has a definite moving date and a detailed plan for the process.

So was Audrey.

As I arrived and Audrey waved me over, Bernard shouted

“For God’s sake don’t sit down! You’ll never get away!”

But Audrey, at long last, was beginning to understand that there was a schedule and a plan and was relaxing. It made a huge difference to her ability to express herself. It was still mostly nonsense but I was better able to judge when to say “I understand”, “That makes perfect sense” or “I agree entirely” and make her comfortable.

Now that her concerns about where and when she was going had been assuaged she was worrying that people think she’s “difficult” and “completely insane”.

I told her no-one thought that. They do though.

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