sunshine and showers

That was the weather and mum today. She slipped in and out of good/grouchy moods umpteen times in the six hours I was with her, mostly due to memory loss but also punctuated by annoyance with me - "I wish you hadn't got the doctor out....I hope there's no-one else coming....I'll just refuse to go (to the memory loss clinic)" etc. First she lost her keys - she'd moved them from where we'd put them on Thursday, eventually they turned up in a cupboard. Then she lost her specs and was convinced someone had taken them - that delayed our trip to Morrisons for about half an hour while we both hunted round the house. Not having found them, the usual shopping marathon was remarkably swift as mum was anxious to get home and ask her neighbour if she'd left them at her house.

Back home I had to phone the bank up again - the hole in the wall had refused to unblock the pin on mum's card - went through the same ridiculous performance of trying to get a deaf, confused, 89 year old to provide security information over the phone before the bank would tell me anything. I'm afraid I was a little short with the poor man over the lack of alternative strategies for customers with special needs. He, on the other hand, was most apologetic and polite. Oh dear. It transpired that a new pin had been sent out to mum, goodness knows where that letter went, hence the problems with the card. They're going to send another new one out next week, so that should sort it out.

Mum's specs turned up at last, in one of the bedrooms - looks at me suspiciously "well, that's peculiar, why didn't I see them there before?" Just as I was thinking it was time to escape, mum remembered our plan for the shower and hair washing. Darn. Washed mum's hair in the sink before the shower - much better system, I didn't get my front soaking wet that way.

Home, exhausted. Went to bed around six. Got up just after 11pm. And here I am.