Monday

“Hello Mum! It’s Nick.”

“Yeah.”

“How’ve you been today?”

“Not too bad”

I would’ve thought “Quite active!” would’ve been a better answer judging by the state of the bed. It looked like something more typical of Peak Active Mum: the long prism-shaped pad that was supposed to be keeping Mum’s feet off the hard panel at the foot of the bed was lying next to her and the sheet and blanket were rolled up in a ball in her lap. If she was following her usual Sleepy/Active cycle then she wasn’t due to behave like this for another two days. Mum let me remake her bed and only objected when I tried to take the blanket off her.

Mum was calm, comfortable, content and conversational for the whole of my visit and the worst of the fidgeting stopped once I’d remade her bed. Almost everything she said was unintelligible and the proportion of what she said that was directed at me got lower and lower the longer I stayed. It was another ‘The Other People In The Room With Us Are A Lot More Interesting And Entertaining Than You Are’ visit.

I interrupted her to tell her there was another birthday in the family and explained which of us it was. She turned to her Other People and said

“That’s my nephew”

“No Mum, he’s my nephew and your grandson”

“That’s my grandson” she said to her Other People.

Mum was a lot more compliant about me taking a photo of her to send him and seemed unfazed when I told her he’d seen and thanked her.

“I’ll send him some money shall I Mum? Usual amount alright?”

“I’d better give you some then”

“Don’t worry about that Mum. We can settle up later.”

“We’re settling up later” she told her Other People.

Then Mum told me she’d been out all day. To Loughton or London, I couldn’t make out which. Then I got a list of all the places she’d been yesterday and the day before. I couldn’t make out any of them either.

“I’ve got two letters to post”

“Where are they Mum? Over there on the side table?”

“No”

They way she said it made it so obvious that she wasn’t going to tell me where they were that I couldn’t help laughing. Fortunately, she was talking to her Other People so intently that she didn’t notice.

Then Mum turned to me to tell me that she’d asked her Other People to make their minds up about whether they wanted to come with us when we went home.

“You can’t leave yet Mum. You have to have your evening meds first.”

She explained to her Other People that there would be a delay.

Although I’d only been with her half an hour she suddenly looked tired.

“Look Mum, why don’t you have a rest and get forty winks while I go and have my tea? I can come back when you’ve had your meds and you’ve got yourself ready”

“Yeah. Alright.”

She beckoned me in closer so I could hear what she wanted to say next properly and put a Serious Face on.

“Don’t forget to take that thing behind you with you.”

“Don’t worry about that Mum. I’ll leave it here for now and I’ll pick it up later.”

Bloody hell

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