Friday

A sluggish day today. It could have been due to starting a new treatment for my hay-fever. It’s just something available over the counter but every antihistamine I’ve ever tried has made me drowsy and it’s why I avoid taking anything. It could have been that having taken an antihistamine had allowed me a decent night’s sleep for the first time in months because I could breathe properly for a change and I hadn’t really woken up properly.

So it could have been that but but there’s a more likely cause for my sluggishness. I suspected a different cause because I’d noticed it many times before – I’d spent the best part of a day with Lesley’s dad the day before.

I’d likened it to a kind of hangover before but a better analogy came to me today. Travelling from his reality back to the real world leaves me with a kind of jet lag. We were both utterly drained yesterday evening after being at his house and I still was today.

And it’s not like we can get away from him even when we’re not with him. We’d barely finished breakfast when the phone went. A lady claiming to be a district nurse was on his doorstep and he wouldn’t let her in. He wasn’t able to because he wasn’t in. He was at his day centre and she’d turned up unannounced. She got quite shirty when she wasn’t given the number to his key safe so she could let herself in. Why would we give it to her? Loads of people in his village know he’s a vulnerable old man living alone. Loads of people have Lesley’s number as his primary contact number. The best option seemed to be to make a call to a number we knew was a genuinely the district nursing team and give them the number so they could pass it on. That resulted in navigating automated menu after automated menu through to someone who seemed barely capable of answering a phone and taking a message.

After walking The Dog another couple of hours slipped through my fingers with nothing constructive being achieved before I realised that if I didn’t want to get caught up in another of Mum’s mealtimes I’d have to get moving.

Mum was a lot happier today than she had been yesterday. She was just miserable enough to be normal for Mum. To be fair, she wasn’t entirely miserable. Her mood and lucidity varied wildly during the visit. Her level of being Uncomfortable and Unhappy was much more like a normal Day One but she was getting more mobile now that the stiffness and soreness in her joints was easing.

Mum was much more talkative today but most of it was unintelligible. In one moment of clarity she said

“I love you very much. I’m pleased you’ve come to see me”

“I love you too Mum. It’s why I come to see you every day”

She smiled contentedly and squeezed my hand.

Then her meal arrived. It was another bloody risotto. There was no way she was going to eat any of it. She spat the first spoonful out.

“I don’t blame you Mum. They’ve put way too much dill in it.”

Dessert was a peach and passionfruit yoghurt. She did finish that.

The carer who came to take the leftovers away said she wasn’t too worried about the risotto going untouched because Mum had eaten her lunch.

“You ate lunch today Mum!?”

“Yes.” she said with pride.

I told Mum that I’d been racking my brain trying to think of something she might like to eat that I could bring in. She thought briefly but her answer was too indistinct to make out what she’d said.

“What was that Mum?”

She tried to tell me again but was even more unintelligible than he had been before.

“You know what I mean”

“Yes Mum. I know what you mean”

And then…

“Shall I read to you for a bit Mum? I haven’t done that for ages.”

“Ooh, yes! Yes please.”

She hadn’t seemed that keen about anything in a long time. Five minutes later, the first chapter was done.

“They’re good little stories these aren’t they Mum”

“Yeah”

“The village they’re set in isn’t too far from where you were evacuated to in The War”

“Is it!?”

“Yeah. I remember you taking me to see Uncle George when I was very little. What was his wife’s name?”

“Olive” she said without missing a beat

“And didn’t they have kids of their own?”

“Yeah. Frank and Peggie. I didn’t really know Peggie”

“I remember Dad telling Uncle George off. Uncle George had said something about how tall I was and how I should join the army in a Guards regiment. Dad said they was no way I was going in the army.”

Mum just smiled. I had no way of knowing whether any of what she said was right but she sounded confident. Then she said something about something Nicholas had done and ignored me when I told her that that was me. It made me wonder for a moment who she thought I was when she’d said she loved me.

Mum continued to tell me a little about her time with George and his family until her afternoon meds came.

“And here’s your milkshake Iris. Make sure you drink it all!”

I noticed that the nurse had warmed it up. I was told that makes the powder dissolve more quickly.

Mum drank the first half quite easily but then she slowed right down. I put my thumb on the cup at the level of the liquid and let her take two long swigs of the drink. The level hadn’t changed.

“You’re just pretending now aren’t you Mum!”

“Yeah”

I let the nurse know what had happened on my way out. She collapsed with laughter and said she’d get Mum to finish the drink later.

I stopped off at a Tesco on my way home to stock up for Eldest Sister’s visit on Sunday and bumped into Reggie who was hobbling towards the pharmacy on crutches. He’d got knee knack from playing football and needed some painkillers. We talked for ages about Mum and Lesley’s dad. I told him the Pretending To Drink A Milkshake tale. Mum had done that to him plenty of times too.

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