Monday

A high stress day today. My car was in for it’s MOT. It’s ten years old now and in spite of some expensive sounding advisories it is legally roadworthy for another year. But I’ve only done just over two thousand miles since the last MOT. All I do is go and see Mum and Lesley’s dad. Time to rethink whether running two cars is sensible.

The day started with an update from Lesley’s dad’s carer. It had been difficult to wake him up and he’d said he was feeling breathless and generally not very well. He did pick up after a bath and some breakfast though. The people at his day centre told us that he’d been happy enough in the afternoon but sleeping all day yesterday and having a slow start today isn’t a great sign.

Mum was dozing when I walked in her room at The Home but she responded straight away when I announced myself.

“Hello Mum! It’s Nick!”

“Ooh! Hello Tony!”

I didn’t correct her. She was happy to be with someone she knew and there was no need to do anything to upset that.

Mum talked non stop for an hour. Aunt Lou got another mention.

“Aunt Lou’s not a bad old stick, is she Mum? She took me and Will to the British Museum once when we were little. It was that Tutankhamun exhibition. We liked the looks on the faces of the people in huge queue. We just walked straight in!”

“Ooh yes! She worked there!”

She did indeed. She was a book binder. I’d taken a bit of a chance talking about a memory that far in advance of what Mum generally talks about even though this was more than fifty years ago. But Aunt Lou must’ve worked there for years and she must’ve been there during the time that overlaps with the memories that Mum still has access to.

That was about the limit of what I could understand of what Mum said. I did seem to score well on making the right tone of responses this time. I didn’t get any quizzical looks with a face that said “Are you deaf or just daft?” this time anyway.

We got to a lull in Mum’s monologue.

“You’d better go home and have your tea then.”

“Yes. I had.”

“And you’ll come back after?”

“Yeah. I’ll be back in a bit.”

I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to get out like that. And if she did get upset no-one came to see her during the evening then it would be Uncle Tony who got the blame. He’s been dead for decades so I reckon he’ll cope.

All of the carers and the nurse on duty for that shift wanted to tell me how active and talkative Mum had been today, that they were pleased with how much she’d been drinking and how well she was getting over that cough she’d had. Mostly, they were pleased that she’d been in such a good mood.

“Your Mum told me a funny story this morning.” the nurse told me.

“It was very long and I only knew it was funny because she laughed at the end. I can’t make out much of what she says.”

“Yeah. Mum’s talked non-stop to me too and I hardly understood a word of it. Her speech is mostly indistinct now.”

She looked visibly relieved at that. I know that for the vast majority of the staff English is their second language and I knew from The Manager that some of them worry about how well the residents understand them. Mum’s problem is that she speaks English like it’s her second language too so it’s hardly surprising that they can’t understand her.

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