Friday

After missing half a night’s sleep I felt really groggy. The Dog and I both did. And we were left to sort out an adventure for ourselves because Lesley had to go over to her dad’s house to let a team of people in to dismantle and remove all the mobility aids he’d had installed.

That had been a drama in itself as the job of installing and de-installing the equipment had been subcontracted out by the county to a company that must’ve put in an incredibly cheap bid for the work. There’d already been one aborted attempt to arrange the collection. The lady on the phone had said that their drivers covered dad’s area on Fridays. OK, that wasn’t a problem.

“What time will they get to his house?”

“Some time between 8am and 6pm.”

“WHAT!? I live an hour away! And you expect me to get there at 8 in the morning and hang around all day waiting!?”

“No. The way it works is that you’ll get a text the night before telling you whether you’re a morning or afternoon job.”

Obviously, the text didn’t arrive either the night before or on the morning of the day itself. Rightly or wrongly, Lesley assumed that she’d got an afternoon slot and planned the day to get  over at midday. Then she got a text from the driver mid morning telling her that he was on his way and would be there in 20 minutes.

There followed a series of increasingly heated phone calls and an email exchange with head office during which Lesley used the words “You company couldn’t organise a proverbial ‘party’ in a brewery!”

They settled on an afternoon appointment and Lesley got a series of texts with two-hour windows – all different of course.

The driver and his mate were courteous when they arrived.

“Your firm must be a nightmare to work for. The people in the office haven’t got a clue!”

“Yeah. You’re not the first person to say that.”

While Lesley waited for them to complete the work she looked around the house and noticed that a number of items that she thought she was inheriting were glaring in their absence. The reason for their absence became clear when she spoke to her sister later in the evening and the price that Lesley was going to have to pay for rolling over so easily during the initial discussions on who would have what began to dawn.

Lesley’s sister had taken all sorts of things that, because she left the country 30 years ago, she had no idea of the sentimental value to Lesley. She’d taken away as much as she could carry and had tried to justify it by inflating the value of the crap she either couldn’t fit in her suitcase or wouldn’t cough up the cost of shipping it.

And now she was demanding more.

And she was getting extremely huffy because Lesley said No.

“Classic Narcissist! She’s pushing all your buttons until you react and when you do you become the bad person.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

“And she’s gone through that house like a thief would and taken anything remotely shiny that they can carry out easily.”

“Yeah.”

Once again, Lesley was left feeling that her memorabilia inheritance was going to be limited to the crap her sister didn’t want.

The conversation “I can’t believe she said that!”, “Can’t you? It looks like she’s behaving exactly the way I thought she would.” got repeated several times during the evening.

Bloody hell. 

Author’s Note

My Mum was in a nursing home in the Thames Valley for a year and a half until she passed away in December 2024. My Father-in-law went into the same home the following January. But Lesley’s sister didn’t approve and made the situation so awkward that he had to be moved. He passed away in March 2025. Names and locations have been changed or hidden to protect the identities of those involved.

Image Credit

Original Image by Nick Gilmore. April 2025.