Sunday

Taking The Dog on a long, wet and dirty walk was the order of the day today as Lesley was determined to get to The Home early enough to help her dad with his lunch.

It felt like months since we’d done the Favourite Walk One with the final half of Favourite Walk Two Combo. Out along the flooded bridle path, along the riverbank to the country park, a quick game of Stick & Water in the lake and back home along the lanes. I took the precaution of wearing wellies to avoid another three hours of walking with wet feet.

Meanwhile, Lesley seemed to be having a good visit. She was greeted by Barbara with the news that Dad was beginning to settle. The news that the decision to move him clearly hadn’t reached everyone. When Lesley explained what her sister had been up to they had to agree that she had no option. Dad wouldn’t get any peace until Sister got her way.

Dad had chosen prawns in chilli sauce and mashed potato for lunch.

“It did seem an odd choice.” Lesley said.

“I bet he hadn’t heard what the options were properly.”

“Yeah, probably. Even odder was that when I asked him how it was he said it was a nice pasty.”

“What!?”

It seems that Lesley is getting a really good grasp of translating what Dad says into what he actually means. His problem is a difficult one. He uses English words, just not the right ones. I found this when speaking to Audrey. When she wasn’t tired or under the weather she wouldn’t have to use made-up words but that made it almost impossible to understand what she meant. It’s far easier to get the gist when she’s talking Double Dutch.

But Lesley has got to the bottom, she thinks, of what Dad means when he says the food is horrible. He means it’s cold. Lesley has noticed that he spends so much energy cutting his food up that he falls asleep. By the time he got round to actually eating it his food is cold and inedible.

He’s still refusing to eat the sandwiches he gets for supper though. My best guess at what’s happening is that he’s been asked if he wants sandwiches for supper and he’s reverted to a decades-long habit of answering Yes to a question he hasn’t heard properly.

“I don’t like sandwiches. Never have.”

Only last month though if we told him we were coming over and asked him what he wanted us to bring for his lunch he’d say without hesitation

“A chicken sandwich from Marksie’s.”

News that Dad had had a good day, that he’d enjoyed his lunch in spite of not knowing what it was, had been laughing and joking with the staff and seemed to be settling was sent by WhatsApp to a location several time-zones away.

Instead of being content that her dad was alright, Lesley’s sister melted in panic. That didn’t fit her narrative at all and she accused Lesley of wanting to back out of the decision to move him.

She might be the only person on the planet to think it was a good idea to uproot him again but she was utterly convinced that it was the right thing to do.

The question has never been asked – she doesn’t tolerate being challenged – but I’d love to know why she thinks that. The Absolute Infallibility of a Narcissistic Psychopath seems a good fit so I’m going with that.

Bloody hell.

Image Credit

Original image by Nick Gilmore. February 2025