Tuesday

Mum had been sufficiently sleepy yesterday for me to feel confident that she’d be totally unresponsive and utterly unaware whether anyone was with her or not today. As part of my promise to myself to not visit when it wouldn’t benefit her I gave myself the day off. A Mental Health Day.

The Dog got her main walk a little earlier than normal. The fiendishly hot weather mandated that. She loves the walk down to the brook and swimming is good exercise for her.

The point of a Mental Health Day is not to set a target to do anything important or challenging. Something creative would be ideal.

But my decision-making ability was clearly still wonky because I decided it would be a good idea to make a small part of the front garden look a little less like a mature rewilding project in temperatures north of 30 degrees.

I did manage to make a difference though and the only downside was that I now have a pile of vegetation that must weigh as much as I do to get rid of.

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