Tuesday

The plan for today had been for Lesley to go to her dad’s while The Dog and I worked out a way to keep ourselves amused at home.

That plan lasted until precisely ten minutes after breakfast when there was a plaintive voice from the shower.

“I can’t face going. Not on my own. Could you two come with me?”

It was just as well. She’d had a bad night’s sleep and I doubted she was safe to drive. There was no argument from me.

The word this morning was Overwhelm. It is most mornings now but on most mornings it goes unsaid. Not today though.

I’ve noticed recently how Lesley has been relying more and more on me running through my pre-departure checklist out loud.

“Keys, phone, treats, poo bags, doggo… Ready?”

There were a few more items to add today. Dad’s house keys (they’ve been forgotten before) and all the sorted stuff that we’d got ready to return there temporarily before it goes off to a charity shop.

The Dog had picked up on the cues that there was an imminent adventure. Her usual bounciness was fully restored today after the stress of the visit to my Mum’s house at the weekend. She knows that she won’t be allowed into the car before she’s performed her toilet too. She obliged us straight away and we headed off.

The visit was mercifully short and most of the time was spent walking The Dog. She knew where she wanted to go – The Chalk Stream.

Last time we’d all been there there had been plenty of life in the stream – several small brown trout and the biggest crayfish I’d ever seen. Actually, the only crayfish I’d ever seen. Today, there was just a single trout and the sighting was so fleeting I couldn’t be 100 percent sure I’d actually seen something. But The Dog enjoyed the walk. There had been enough rain recently to make sure the stream was deep enough for a decent game. I certainly felt better for the walk but Lesley was still fretting about how much there was left to do in the houses we were emptying.

As we had travelled in Lesley’s car the temptation to bring a load of stuff back was much reduced as there just isn’t as much room as there is in my car. I selected an old briefcase and a few old biscuit tins that looked like they contained ‘useful’ screws and other assorted small items of ironmongery. Oh, and some more watercolour paint.

The briefcase contained a few treasures. There was some correspondence from when dad had briefly worked overseas in the very early 1960s for example. The oldest dated document was from 1956. The newest was some information from Dulux that was designed to reduce the confusion and terror among the professionals who used their products following the announcement that in 1971 they would start selling paint in tins that were metric sizes. Dulux also published guides to help people run their painting and decorating business effectively. Quite why he needed them I couldn’t say. He’d given up running his own business before Lesley was born. Quite why he needed this set was also difficult to say because I’ve already put three other identical sets out for recycling.

Meanwhile, Lesley had gone back to trying to rescue some of my Mum’s embroidery. When she was young her needlework was impeccable. The pieces Lesley was looking at made her sad.

“Look at this… There are knots on the front, missed stitches all over the place… She’s used the wrong green here… You can see here where she’s put it down and when she’s picked it up again the stitches are going in the wrong direction…

“Why did she start so many and not finish them do you think?”

My best guess was that she’d got slower as her eyesight began to fail, got disheartened when she found an error and by the time she was ready to give up on a piece a birthday or Christmas would come around and someone would give her another one.

But she never told anyone she wasn’t able to do them any more.

Poor old girl.

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. July 2025.