Wednesday

Not a great start to the day mental health-wise today. We started off with Lesley getting an unexpected notification for a transaction on a credit card she hardly ever uses. She couldn’t remember using the card recently but, as she often says these days, she’s “got no head” and can’t remember where she was or what she did from one day to the next.

With the wonky transfer of apps to her new phone she couldn’t log in to check what had happened. So, she phoned up the bank. Again. Once she’d found out that the transaction checked out OK she had another go at getting the bank’s app to work. This time the agent suggested something new – uninstall the app from the phone, log in to her accounts using the browser, then re-install the app and try again now that the phone was registered as a trusted device. Success! Well, success for that bank at least. I think there are still a couple where she can’t get the app to work.

Then it was weigh-in time. My weight had gone down. Lesley’s had gone up and she was being stricter with her diet than I was. That wasn’t good.

Then she noticed the digital photo frame had woken itself up. Up until the weekend she had found the old photos of her dad that I had scanned and uploaded comforting. Not now. Not since she found The Letter.

“Seeing his face grinning out at me just makes me so angry. Knowing what he was up to when they were taken…”

She was still lost in thought as we headed off out with The Dog. We’d agreed to take her down to the river as the riverside path is in shade almost all the way – vital for a little black dog on yet another sunny day. The Dog had other ideas. When we got to the end of the bridle path and I turned on to the riverside path The Dog gave me her “No thanks. I don’t want to go that way. We’re going this way instead.” expression. So off to the nature reserve and the lake it was then.

The sticks were good today. The Dog likes a good hefty stick that makes a decent splash when thrown in the water. We might be getting to the end of the Playing In The Lake season. If this hot weather continues then the risk of blue-green algae in the water is going to get too high for us to risk letting her in it.

On the way back, Lesley asked

“So did what I said the other day about the phone you should have make sense? What do you think?”

My phone is starting to do what hers did – intermittently slow, reluctant to charge and randomly losing charge precipitously – but before I could stop myself I said

“I wasn’t thinking anything about anything. I was concentrating on The Dog. She’s constantly milliseconds away from eating or rolling in something gross along here.”

Even though I hadn’t said that the whole point of a walk with The Dog was to give 100% focus on something that wasn’t depressing for a couple of hours and her regular reminders of Real Life were ruining the walk the damage was done.

We were all pretty tired when we got back but after a couple of coffees we got on with more form filling and sorting through the boxes of stuff we’d brought back from our parents’ houses.

Lesley’s dad had often gone on about his sable paintbrushes and how expensive they’d been but up until the other day I hadn’t found any. Today, I struck gold. I found a set that were still in the manufacturer’s packaging. And then another. And another. And then several more sets. And then a set that had actually been used. Looking at the state of them, they hadn’t been used for watercolours either.

It felt like a productive afternoon. Boxes got cleared. Our home began to feel less like an assault course and we both felt better. We’ve both felt the benefits of making a visible difference to the home. And a productive day means a better night’s sleep and a more satisfying day the next.

We took The Dog out for her evening walk. She seemed a lot more sprightly than she’d done recently.

“This dog seems to be getting fitter. She’s nowhere near as stiff and sore as she deserves to be after tearing around this morning.”

“I’m less concerned with her getting fitter than I am about whether she’s stopped getting fatter.”

The weight thing again. I said nothing.

Then, later…

“I’ve put together a set of sable brushes that look like they were used for sign-writing. I’ve put then aside for your sister.”

“Thanks. I don’t know why she wants them though.”

“I know. She didn’t even know he’d done sign-writing until you told her the other day. Now she sounds like she can’t live without them.”

“What’s she going to do with them?”

“Build a little shrine to him?”

No response.

“Well, she’s not going to let anyone use then. Not after they’ve so obviously been used by him. The only reason she’d have to touch them would be if she’s going to set light to them when you tell her about The Letter. If you’re going to tell her that is…”

“Oh, I’m going to tell her alright!”

“You know she’s not going to believe you though right?”

“I’m going to send her The Letter.”

Neither of us can understand why he kept it, why he ran the risk of Lesley’s mum finding it and how both of our lives could have been so different if she had.

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.