01/06/2010 by Brigid.

May 31^st, for those of us who lack the confidence to complete their Déclaration d’Impôt on-line, is D-day for French tax returns. Since our (French-registered) car and bike insurance are also due for renewal around now, a trip home was in order. Mum is, to all intents and purposes, fully mobile again so, having not spent a single night alone for nearly a year, this would be a fine chance for her to prove her independence. The lovely girls from the home care agency visit every morning and Mum’s beloved daily agreed to come out of retirement to do a few hours of housework while we were away, so she wouldn’t be entirely abandoned.

The only real issue was how Mum was going to feed herself during our absence. Despite her protests to the contrary, a week’s diet of soup, sandwiches and ginger biscuits, is hardly ideal for one who is meant to be gaining weight. Pre-prepared meals might be an answer but there was always the question of reheating them … or not, as the case may be. Since her illness, Mum gets ravinously hungry and needs to eat … now! As in immediately - not in 20 minutes’ time, when the oven has reached temperature. Left to her own devices, she would happily spread fish pie on bread and eat it as a sandwich rather than heat it up. Even so, having once or twice nearly melted a plastic freezer container in the oven, John and I decided she needed a microwave.

We found a neat little combination microwave with, needless to say, a dozen functions that Mum will never use, and I cleared a convenient corner of the kitchen worksurface of the ‘coral reef’: an accumulation of lovingly-collected tins and boxes, old menus, a dozen bottles of vitamin pills, “useful” plastic bags, kitchen scales (2 sets, with weights), paper napkins and a couple of hot water bottles … Of course, I couldn’t throw any of this away but, by the time I had found most of it a new home, I must say that the new microwave looked very handsome in its new oasis of quiet organisation.

And Mum seemed approving. She even put on her reading specs to examine the new apparatus. I gave her a brief demonstration with a cup of water, and stuck three flourescent yellow stickers next to the most essential buttons, marking them steps #1, #2 and #3. Nothing could be simpler.

Or so I thought. In fact, when I dared to suggest, an hour later, that Mum might like to heat up her dinner in the new oven, her face was a picture. The look of horror was such that I might as well have suggested grilling a live rattlesnake with a flame-thrower. No! Really!”, she said with genuine panic in her voice, “I’ll make an omelette”.

How guilty did I feel when John and I came home from our evening out, to find that she hadn’t located the eggs …?!

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25/04/2010 by Brigid.

Teenagers have a way with words. When my cousin, Ella, was about 15, her father, a single parent of three, sent her to stay with Mum so that he could take a bit of a break. The Isle of Wight has been a popular summer resort since the Victorian times and generations of children have enjoyed summers synonymous with grazed knees, banana sandwiches, shrimping nets, sandy underpants, skinny-dipping, first dances, first kisses, first … Ah, halcyon days!

However , as foreign travel became affordable to the masses, the mild climate and holiday atmosphere spawned a rash of old people’s homes. While the families still descend from London in August, the Island has attracted the nickname of “God’s Waiting Room” for the rest of the year. And, unfortunately, a seaside town out of season is never going to cut it with a bored teen.

Not all the old folk here are anonymous inmates of residential care homes. In common with many of her contemporaries, Mum herself chose to ‘retire’ to the Isle of Wight after my father died. Our family have strong links with the Island. I was spending my summer holidays here, racing keelboats from the local sailing club and, to Mum, it seemed the most natural thing to do. However, when she announced her plans, my grandmother told her, “You’ll live till you’re 100 and go mad. Everyone does.”

Sitting down to lunch in the Club dining room, Ella surveyed Mum’s lame, deaf and toothless friends. “Ugh, me-no-paus-al …”, she huffed, “do we really HAVE to eat in Jurassic Park!”

That was twenty years ago. But the name seemed so apt, it stuck. We had lunch there today. Not much has changed. Only now, sadly, it is Mum and her contemporaries who are the fossils.

Founded in 1886, the sailing club is the oldest on the Island. It boasts three competitive classes for adult sailors and a growing reputation as a centre of excellence for sail training for youngsters from age 8 and up. Progress indeed, since I was a child, when under-18’s were not allowed to cross the gravel in front of the clubhouse (a pre-fab wooden cricket pavilion, constructed by Boulter and Paul of Norwich circa 1896), let alone set foot in the dining room! Until the 70’s, we were confined to the Dinghy Club (started in 1925 by David Niven and a friend), and just barely tolerated on the basis that we were neither seen nor heard by the senior members. Any accidental trespass into the adults’ territory was invariably met with a severe rebuke from any one of a dozen purple-faced moustaches lining the bar room balcony. But that was then.

Nowadays, throughout the winter (except when the footie is on Sky at the Village Inn), the Club is the focus of our social circle. Summer too, though the landscape changes a bit after Easter with the arrival of the London set, keen to secure places for their children on Cadet Week. These people are generally my contemporaries, though I am always slightly shocked to see how we have all aged. Terrifyingly, their children are now of an age to be organising Dinghy Club events themselves.

As the weather warms up, the older year-round residents take refuge in their gardens, reliquishing their Scrabble and bridge evenings in favour of more nautically-inspired events for the under-60’s, “the young”! Even so, there are moments when one could be forgiven for mistaking the Club dining room for some sort of posh retirement home.

“Do you want pudding, Mr Hamilton?”, asks a young waitress.
What is it?”, comes the reply.
“Rhubarb Crumble or Chocolate Torte”.
“Chocolate sauce, eh? Yes, I’ll think I’ll have vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.”
“Err, we can do vanilla ice cream, but we don’t have chocolate sauce, I’m afraid.”
“No chocolate sauce? Then why did you offer it? I’ll just have vanilla ice cream, thank you.” Then, in a stage whisper, “Really, I don’t know where they find these waitresses … ”
I don’t know either, but I swear they are some of the most patient teenagers you will find anywhere. Our waitress moves on.
“Pudding, Mrs Pilchard?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Would you like desert, Mrs Pilchard?”
“Oooh yes! What is it?”
“Rhubard Crumble or Chocolate Torte”.
“With custard? I do like home-made custard, don’t you? What did you say the choices were …?”

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24/03/2010 by Brigid.

The observatory on the summit of the Pic du Midi, 60k to the west of Montréjeau, is clearly silhouetted against a clear blue sky. It’s going to be a great day for skiing. Sunshine, snow, faux filet and frites for lunch, a pichet of vin rouge and may be a chocolat chaud or two (adding a shot of quelque choses from a hip flask when the waiter isn’t looking) …

I’m dreaming. Something heavy lands on my ankles and I open my eyes to find a 6kg tabby pressing his nose into my face, demanding breakfast. It’s 6.45am. The sun is streaming through a chink in the curtains, but we’re not in the Pyrenees. The cat is now stomping about on John’s legs. His brother is wailing by the bedroom door. John shows no sign of wanting to greet the day. He turns over and the cat lands on the floor with an unceremonious thud. Resistance is futile. I drag on my dressing gown and go and find them some food before they wake my mother.

My cousin and my great-aunt are coming to lunch today and I need to get up anyway. It’s John’s birthday and lunch is as close as he will get to a birthday party. If I had asked him in advance who he would most have liked to invite, I doubt he would have thought of Leslie. It doesn’t matter. Leslie and Roz have, of course, come to see Mum, not John, but they have the great advantages of being good company and enjoying their food.

Leslie is my mother’s accountant. He is also a member of the British Long Distance Swimming Association and the (rather eccentric) Serpentine Swimming Club in Hyde Park. Readers in the UK may have seen Leslie in a recent advertising campaign by The Times: a swimmer in Speedo trunks and a black swimming cap, diving into the Serpentine on a cold winter’s day. You can’t see Leslie’s face in the photo, but knowing his reputation as a trencherman, there was no mistaking the slightly rotund midriff. John and Leslie get on well. Indeed, they had, very nearly, been business partners.

When John retired from the Met Police in 2001, he had the idea of setting up an IT consultancy. It didn’t seem such a bad idea. We both had backgrounds in computing. Hell, we met on a computer course, after all! John spent the last few years of his service rolling out a London-wide crime reporting system and was pretty handy when it came to pulling computers apart. I built databases. My first lesson in hands-on computer maintenance came in 1994, when John took the lid off our brand new desktop and stuck the end of the vacuum cleaner in it. We nearly had a “domestic”! But two days later, when our receptionist’s computer packed up, I won a lot of Brownie points by whipping off the lid and swapping her hard drive with another from a similar machine. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. By 2001, I was working as a Network Administrator for a medical communications company.

Anyway, all this is by the by. Where was I? Ah yes, our brief foray into IT consultancy …

Our first potential client was referred to us by a friend. Mr Prakash was a plastic surgeon. He was interested in installing a network in his office and, specifically, needed a database to store digital photographs. We needed someone with an expert knowledge of computer networks. And that’s where Leslie fits in.

John and Leslie duly agreed to meet Mr Prakash at his very swish Harley Street consulting rooms. The door was answered by an extremely shapely pair of bristols, the owner of which promptly announced that she was one of Mr Prakash’s most grateful patients. In case you hadn’t guessed, Mr Prakash specialised in breast enhancement.

Having admired the secretary’s assets, our dynamic duo went on to view the offices and discuss the relative merits of Novell and Windows NT. Mr Prakash then came to the subject of the storage of his photos and choice of a digital camera, and pulled out a large album of “before and after” photos of his work. Reading between the lines, things went steadily downhill from there …

Sadly, “Rynne Associates” never did get that contract and, as it happened, we were both offered other jobs shortly after. Nevertheless, as far as John and Leslie were concerned, the abortive venture served to cement a lasting friendship.

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12/03/2010 by Brigid.

I am feeling a bit sorry for myself today. I have shingles … again. It is unattractive and uncomfortable and I have been given a five-a-day course of anti-viral horse pills that may, or may not, stop it spreading and have already upset my stomach. Shingles and an upset stomach. Outstanding.

On the other hand, having a potentially contagious disease does give me an excuse to avoid hugging people. Specifically, it presents me with a water-tight cop out this weekend when my sister comes to stay. One of the many criticisms Sarah has levelled at me over the years is that I don’t show enough affection, ergo I don’t hug her. She is probably right. As a family, I don’t think we were great huggers, and I particularly detest being hugged by bossomy old ladies with more facial hair than Bill Oddie, or trying to ‘hug’ the boney thorax of my skeletal sister without actually breaking anything. When greeting friends or relatives of either sex, the social air kiss is just soooo much less embarrassing. Mwah darhling! And now, of course, having spent so much time in France, John and I habitually greet friends with a kiss on alternate cheeks, which takes some of our non-Francophile friends by surprise and can be hazardous. Right side first. Ooops!

Likewise, I was initially taken aback by the American man-hug. But there is something simultaneously comradely and affectionate about this very masculine embrace - often combined with a slap on the back between two men or a kiss on the cheek between a man and a woman. This is no perfunctory greeting reserved for the tribal elders, but a genuine recognition of brotherhood. Even between men and women, while the the potential to take advantage of physical proximity undoubtedly exists, the power and duration of the hug is generally directly proportional to the closeness of the friendship. Anyway, so natural is the gesture, that any exageration tends to be more flattering than offensive. Away from home, such a hug bestows a reassuring sense of belonging, of being part of the club and, as such, I am a fan.

Anyway, back to the present and my current role as my mother’s housekeeper. We’ve just seen my aunt off on the 10.55am Yarmouth ferry. Now I need to remake the guest bed for my slightly potty sister, who arrives tomorrow. The utility room already looks like a Chinese laundry, so I am faced with the dilemma of whether or not I really need to change the sheets. Auntie says not. She only stayed one night and it is, in her opinion, perfectly acceptable to ask Sarah to sleep on the unused side of the double bed. On the other hand, my sister drives us all round the bend and doesn’t always get the warmest of welcomes from our mother, so I am inclined to make a special effort for her. It worked last time. Peace and harmony are the names of the game where the two of them are concerned. This time, however, the dice are loaded against me. It is Mother’s Day on Sunday and Sarah has baked a cake …

In fact, Sarah has very probably baked several cakes. She is nothing if not a perfectionist. Mum’s lemon sponge birthday cake took several attempts. For weeks beforehand, Sarah’s friends, relatives and workmates were presented with beta versions. Dozens of cookery books were consulted. Recipes were chosen and modified. Advice was sought from friends. The butter was creamed, the eggs were beaten and the batter was baked. But, time and time again, the finished cake was found to be too rich, too sweet, too heavy, too sharp, too, too …

In the event, Sarah’s cake was a triumph: a mini masterpiece covered with a delicate white glacé icing, decorated with little gold sugar stars and a white rose from her own garden. It tasted delicious and we told her so, but the hospital had stolen her thunder. There was another cake! Or, to be more precise, as my sister arrived habitually late and well after teatime, there HAD BEEN another cake. A rather large one, actually. But all that was left now were some chocolate crumbs and a bit of squishy icing. Nevertheless, with all the hype surrounding the making of Sarah’s lemon sponge, we could hardly leave it, could we? Well, yes we could. With the best will in the world, there is only so much birthday cake one can be expected to consume in the space of two hours. There was a bit left over and Mum made the fatal error of suggesting that it be offered to the nurses. Cue frilly lips and tears before bedtime. Feel the love …

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21/02/2010 by Brigid.

As you can imagine, a lot has happened in the two months since my last post. We got Mum home, safe and sound, in time for Christmas. Though it wasn’t, perhaps, quite the merry feast that we had all hoped for. Festive food, especially those dishes whose main ingredients consisted of dried fruit and nuts, proved quite a challenge to Mum’s digestive system. There were regular bouts of painful indigestion and sickness, culminating in a blockage that required yet another surgical intervention. The good news is that the operation went well and, despite the loss of yet more weight and muscle-strength, we all believe that Mum is now well on the road to recovery. So, with our London house now finished and on the market, and Mum convalescing in The Elms, John and I put the cats in a cattery and took a bit of a break.

It was all a bit “last minute” and we are being a little secretive about our current whereabouts. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work it out, but John’s mother is under the impression that we are still on the Isle of Wight, and we would rather keep it that way.

Knowing what a hard winter it has been so far here, it was reasonable to assume that an uninsulated summer cottage would be a touch chilly in mid-February. Thus, having failed to identify any charity sending blankets to Haiti, we borrowed two or three from Mum’s vast, moth-ball scented collection, dragged the all-seasons duvet and pillows off our own bed, and packed our thermal undies along with a dozen bottles of wine and three quarts of comforting home-canned stew.

We were right about the cottage. Despite the turf fire and central heating, we can still see our breath indoors. A hard frost covers the road outside and dark clouds race in off the Atlantic, bringing with them hail, sleet and snow.  But things could be worse. As quickly as the clouds arrive, they are gone again. Far off, the Cliffs of Moher and O’Brien’s Tower emerge silhouetted against a narrow band of blue sky and shafts of sunlight paint the neighbouring fields bronze, copper and gold. And, if all goes to plan, this view (or one very similar) will shortly be ours to keep.

The welcome has been characteristically warm and we have already been fed to within an inch of our lives or, at the very least, to the last hole on our longest belts. Then there is the Guinness. No trip would be complete without a good drink with John’s cousins. So, on Friday evening we ate in and agreed to meet up in Inagh for a jar or two around 9.30pm.

Whether due to the recession or to the smoking ban, O’Rinn’s seemed unusually quiet. We had a couple of pints there, then adjourned across the road to Dillons, where a poker game was drawing a bit of a crowd. As, one by one, the players threw in their hands, the dimly-lit bar emptied, leaving a few die-hard drinkers and our small party. I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Ollie, how are ye?”, said Marie. The owner of the hand was a thin elderly man with long white hair and a complete absence of molars. He poked a boney finger at John, “What’s wrong with your hair, Tulip? Are ye a policeman or someting?”. Then, to Theresa, “This’ll be your husband?” Theresa indicated that John was actually my husband, to which Ollie reacted with apparent disappointment, “Eh, so ye’re married to Tulip?” He backed off a little and began to sing a Republican tribute to the Falls Road Volunteers. Mercifully, the entertainment was swiftly brought to a conclusion when the landlord hit the light-switch and plunged the bar into darkness. It was time to leave.

I don’t remember anything else about the evening. It was, in fact, about 3.30am when John and I got indoors and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I have no idea if John had achieved the gallon, but was only glad that I had been drinking halves to his pints. It was still dark when John woke me, clambering about on my side of the bed. If my luck was in, my sense of humour was definitely out. “What the f*ck are you doing?”, were the most romantic words I could muster. “I need to pee and I can’t find my way out. Where’s the f*cking door gone?” came the reply from my disoriented and increasingly panic-stricken husband. I quickly turned the light on before there was an accident.

Suffice to say, I was more than slightly relieved when Jim rang on Saturday morning and put us off until tonight.

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23/12/2009 by Brigid.

I have sat down several times during the last couple of weeks, intending to update this blog, but each time I have struggled to put more than two sentences together. Despite this, the site still appears to be attracting visitors. Whoever you are, I thank you for your loyalty.

Once my mother was on her feet, her recovery seemed to gain momentum. She dispensed with the dreaded Zimmer frame within a week and, using a simple stick, was soon able to negotiate first the first floor passage, then a flight of stairs. The effort exhausted her, of course, as she was still eating very little: ‘Build Up’ soups and my homemade sandwiches being the preferred menu. Then there was a real setback when Mum’s wound (still not completely healed after her July operation) developed an abscess and had to be cut open again! Nevertheless, having been cleaned up by some friendly maggots, we were finally given a discharge date of 17^th December. And so it was that, last Thursday, Mum and I boarded the 3.30pm Portsmouth – Fishbourne ferry, and I brought her home.

I never really saw myself as a nurse or even a particularly good housekeeper, but, for the time being, this is my new vocation. Though I must say the community health services here in the Isle of Wight have proved spectacularly efficient. Within 24 hours of our arrival, we had had a visit from Mum’s GP and a screening call from the Occupational Therapists with the offer of immediate loan equipment from the local Red Cross. The District Nurse confirmed that she would be visiting the following morning, and the Stoma Nurse rang to welcome Mum home and made an appointment for Monday, and the Physiotherapists rang to apologise for the service being closed over Christmas, but promised they would be in touch the first week in January …

It felt good to know that I wasn’t on my own, particularly as I have had to leave John behind in London, overseeing the last of the redecorating work. For the time being Mum is still too weak to be left alone for more than an hour or so at a time, so JR is tasked with dressing the house for the market. An onorous responsibility, as he frequently reminds me that “real men don’t plump cushions”. Naturally, I, in all my feminine wisdom, have left him with a mountain of them, all carefully colour-coordinated, together with a substantial collection of vases, ornaments and pictures. In an ideal world, I would be there to tell John which rooms they were intended for. Instead, we have Skype and a webcam.

Neither Mum nor I have spent Christmas in the Isle of Wight for at least 15 years, and John has never spent Christmas here. The discharge date came too late for us to make any social arrangements, so this year will be rather different to past Christmasses. We haven’t sent any cards and presents have been kept to the edible or drinkable kind only. Even so, I have a feeling that this year will be one of the best.

I am looking forward to John’s arrival tomorrow, when we will be sure to raise a glass to all our friends and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year.

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10/11/2009 by Brigid.

My mother is 80 today. The party wasn’t the one my sister, Sarah, and I had planned. Instead of a lunch party for 50, we had tea and cakes in Mum’s hospital room, surrounded by cards and flowers from her many well-wishers.

When she was admitted in July, there were doubts as to whether we would be having a birthday party at all. But today we celebrated two milestones.

As far as being 80 is concerned, most of the greetings card manufacturers seem to shy away from creating humourous cards for octogenarians. Perhaps they assume that one loses one’s sense of humour with age. I have news for them. Exactly twenty years ago, on her 60^th birthday, Mum commented to me that she was only getting crumbly on the outside. Inside, she still felt 21.

I was 26. At the time, I didn’t understand. Now, aged 46, I am still wondering if I will ever feel “grown up” … After all, my mother is mature and sensible, simply by virtue of being my mother. That is her job. May be I beat the system. As I never had children of my own, who is to say I should ever be either mature or sensible. But I keep looking for symptoms.

The other milestone, Mum created for herself a few weeks ago. Having only recently arrived back in a private room, weak and emaciated from weeks spent in Intensive Care, her physiotherapists reprimanded her for a lack of effort. “You can’t stay here for ever”, they said. “You need a goal to aim for if you want to be strong enough to go home.” So, between them they came up with a target.  On the whiteboard at the end of Mum’s bed, the physio wrote, “Goal: to be able to stand on my own on my birthday, 10^th November 2009.”

Today, underneath the original message, someone had written “Achieved! Yea hey! Next goal ….”

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28/10/2009 by Brigid.

Some of you will have wondered how my mother is getting on. Much better, thanks. I apologise for the lack of updates.

Her move to a private room more or less coincided with the start of my CELTA course at the end of September. It happened with no warning at all. We had spent the weekend at my mother’s house on the Isle of Wight and I got the news from my uncle on the way back to London. On Friday, it had been business as usual in Intensive Care but, by Sunday, she was sitting up in bed with her reading specs and a newspaper, talking normally and sipping (specially thickened) apple juice through a straw: no more ventilator, no more trachyotomy.

Mum still has a long way to go. She doesn’t seem to tolerate solid food very well, and she is having to learn to stand on her own two feet again – literally! We have had to postpone her 80^th birthday party next month but, at least, we are looking forward to spending Christmas together. Realistically, for us, it is likely to be Spring before we get home to France.

… and Room 101?

In George Orwell’s book, 1984, Room 101 contained “the worst thing in the world”: a place where enemies of the state were subjected to their own worst nightmares. The name isn’t wholly inappropriate. Mum’s worst nightmare at the moment is her twice-daily torment by the “physio-terrorists”, who bully her into doing her exercises!

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27/10/2009 by Brigid.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been well over a month since my last post …

I’m in the launderette again. Of all the disruptions caused by the building work, I find our weekly washing arrangements the most tedious. On the other hand, if I ignore the exuberant Asian talent show on the TV and the Hilda Ogden look-alike doing her washing in 4″ hair rollers, they do provide me with an opportunity to catch up with the blog.

Heard the one about the Englishman ,the Scotsman, and the Irishman … the Turk, the Pole, the Chinese and the Russian? Allow me to introduce you to my fellow CELTA graduates.

“Cancel your social lives; no late nights, no evenings out …”, warned Christine, Language Link’s Polish secretary, on our first day. Indeed, the four-week intensive course was no place for shrinking violets. After one day of tutorials and observation, we were thrown in at the deep end; teaching grammar to intermediate English speakers, who probably knew the rules better than we did. But, before you feel too sorry for them, I should add that these lessons are free. Students are simply required to pay a £10 registration fee for a four week course. A sense of humour helps too.

The school itself is in Earls Court, a neighbourhood long-since re-Christened “Kangaroo Valley” for its population of Australians and Kiwis. The Antipodeans remain, but the influx of foreigners from the other three corners of the globe has been such that English is very much a minority language. Take my recent exchange with a very polite and efficient Indian Post Office assistant:

Me: How much is a stamp for Portugal?
SA: 56p. Err … are you working here?
Me: Well, yes, I suppose I am … “studying”, anyway.
SA: Do you need a credit card while you are here?
Me: Er, no thanks.
SA: What about a phone card? We do very good international rates.
Me: No thanks.
SA: If you don’t mind me asking, where are you from?
Me (bemused): Fulham. (about 15 minutes’ walk)
SA: No. I mean where were you from originally … before you came to England?
Me (embarrassed): What do you mean? I was born here …

At this point I could see the conversation going downhill rapidly, so decided to quit before I was accused of insulting the unfortunate woman. However, it wasn’t quite the end of the story.

Back at the language school, I related my experience to my fellow trainees. Far from the gales of laughter I expected, I was greeted with quizzical looks. Eventually, someone spoke, “Well, we were wondering where you were from. Where did you get that accent?”I was, for a rare moment, completely lost for words or, to use one of my least favourite expressions, utterly gobsmacked!

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12/09/2009 by Brigid.

If love means never having to say you’re sorry, fear is having an eastern European demolishing the back wall of your otherwise comfortable and well-insulated house with a Kango hammer. We’ve got the builders in …

Costa’s guys have only been here a week and, already, I am lamenting the fact that they don’t flush and leave the seat up, and the house is full of plaster dust. The old kitchen units are on eBay and John and I have retreated to the first floor of our Fulham house: washing up in the bath and cooking on two rings in the “living room”: previously the front bedroom. It is almost as if we have entered a time warp and stepped back 14 years!

Actually, I am not sure whether our current conditions are better or worse than when we first bought the freehold and started to convert the two flats back into a house. At least we are only dealing with one room this time, even if the room in question comprises half the ground floor. Back in the day, we stripped out the entire first floor: ceilings, walls, everything in fact, except one bedroom. I have fond memories (not) of arriving home from work and finding John and Bob Masterton looking like a pair of coal miners and the entire house being coated in a fine film of dust from the lathe and plaster. And here we are 14 years later doing the same thing. “It’s what you two do …”, commented John’s exasperated daughter.

The plumbing problems are reversed. Now instead of having no water on the first floor, we have no water on the ground floor, meaning many tedious treks upstairs for the plasterer and much ill-humoured hoovering for me. It also means weekly trips to the launderette - from whence I write, with a row of churning machines for entertainment. Every now and then I get a wave from a very large pair of purple knickers (not mine … or John’s either, before you ask) twirling around in the machine opposite!

I did, however, have a complete sense of humour meltdown over our clean linen, after dust funnelled up into the airing cupboard from downstairs. So I left it for a service wash with the Freddie Mercury look-alike who runs the launderette.

All together now, “I want to break free …”!

I am perfectly sure Mum also wants to break free. She has, and I hesitate as I write this, made a sustained improvement over the last two weeks or so. The CT scans don’t show much change, but her infection markers have been down and her temperature has been more normal. Gradually she is regaining her strength.

Nice “Dr Tim” says that Mum’s progress is remarkable, considering her age. I hadn’t previously taken in that Critical Illness Neuropathy can take 6 months to recover from. So the fact that Mum can smile, wave, clap and make thumbs up signs is very encouraging.

Mum still cannot talk as the plumbing for the ventilator bypasses her voicebox. However, the hoses are now only connected at night. During the day Mum is doing all the breathing work herself with minimal support from an oxygen mask slung loosely over the trachy pipe. A bonus of this arrangement, is that the nurses can wheel her up to the roof terrace, swathed in sheets and blankets, for a dose of early autumn sunshine … which reminds me, I must go and look for a pair of sunglasses.

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