2 more cards..... and nose diving.

Thanks for your comments, especially re. that birthday card. Here's the other one, the one for mum's neightbour, Sylvie. She was 91 on Saturday.

inside....

Here's one I made for my nephew, Alex. He'll be 10 on the 22nd but I'm safe posting it here as my family don't bother with my blogging!!

Meanwhile the strain is starting to show, I think. I had thought I was holding it together soooo well. Too well, maybe.

Mum has burst into tears twice in the last week, clinging on to me and crying. I find it amazingly difficult. It leaves me stunned, shocked. Mum never showed emotion. NEVER. And I don't mean just that she never hugged us or said she loved us, or congratulated us when we did things well. None of that happened. But I also mean she showed no emotion to movies, stories on the news, even the deaths of pets or the burial of my murdered cousin. NOTHING. ZERO. ZILTCH. And so now she is tiny, half the frame she was a few years ago, and she is clinging to my arm, which she has touched more in the last few months than in the rest of my entire life all rolled together, and she is WEEPING. Of COURSE I am being gentle. Of course I am looking after her. Of course I am being the kindest I can be. I just didn't realise what it was taking out of me.

On Tuesday I didn't make it to Art Therapy- 2 weeks in a row now, because I just didn't feel I could leave her. By the evening I think my body had started to rebel! A stye the size of a pea came up on my eye literally within a few minutes. I put my fingertip to my eyelid, expecting to feel a loose eyelash or something, and I felt the lump. By the time I'd got a mirror it had grown. We dashed to the pharmacy and got some anti-infection eye drops. By the time we got back I was feeling sick and dizzy, seeing stars.

We drove mum home early, about 8ish. I went straight to bed. Apart from Fluffy's loud mewling through the night and morning, I slept on and off till after midday Wednesday. Even after I was up I felt wobbly and the room was spinning.

I convinced mum to let me have a sleepy, lazy day on my own. We still rang each other a few times. Then Luvbug picked her up after work, about 5.30. I was still so tired. My eye is better though.

Today, I am tearful and shaky and I can't keep my mind on anything. I feel so low.

I had decided to join a new fitness class starting tonight at the school at the end of my road. But I didn't get home in time. And it just felt like, oh, why bother. There was I feeling positive, thinking I could meet new friends maybe, or get fit, lose a few pounds and -God forbid- have 90 minutes to myself a week.... but it just isn't to be, is it?

Luvbug lost his rag this morning over his computer. Man, you should have heard the swearing and cursing. It got me downstairs, and more to the point, it turned my stomach over and over. After the rows I grew up with at home, I just can't bear anyone shouting and getting angry. But bang bang, stomp stomp stomp, swearing and shouting at 40-odd decibels. Poor Scooter got a rude awakening and I found him creeping away from the living room.

Well that just left me shattered for the day, dazed and tumbled.

"Oh it was just the machine was playing up and I was late and blah blah blah...." and "You know I would never aim it at you..." so what???? So stir up a foul atmosphere, then smile and go to work and forget about it. SOME OF US CAN'T.

Sorry. Just want to quit, today.

What day is it, again?

- it's something my mum asks quite a bit but I'm starting to lose track, myself, lately. NOW, when she asks me, I have to think back to a day when I DID know what day it was, and then count forward, hoping that by the time I've got there she hasn't yet moved on to the next question. If so, never mind; tuck it in somewhere easily retrievable for when when she next asks...

Mum has been spending nights alone at the bungalow for almost a week now. (Please, quick! Touch something wooden!)

I have been pleased and stunned, really impressed at how forward she has been in speaking to her new neighbours, and joining in with things like coffee mornings down there. But still early days, and for that reason, she spends most of her time with me. We go shopping. I draw maps to show her the layout of the main streets here. We go to tea shops for lunch, and hunt all over for shoes to fit my madly shaped feet or trousers to fit her 4ft 8inch frame (no luck, on either account.)

Meanwhile Fluffy has so far cost Luvbug £240 in vet bills due to a bladder infection which the vet thinks is down to stress. And no wonder. Scooter is frustrated at not being able to go outside and spends his spare energy running to and fro all over the house, chortling, and if Fluffy happens to "be in the way" in mid run, well too bad, he thinks. Just makes the inevitable crash more interesting.

I am back in my own bed at last but never for long; Fluffy being deaf, has no idea how loud her night-time calling is. She starts around 2am, calling upstairs. This one is just for a cuddle, but she won't settle on the bed, I have to come down to her. Fooled into thinking she is settled: by the purring, toes in the air, all smiles, I sneak back up to bed.
The second call will be about 3.15. This is a hungry one, where she can't remember where her dish is. I come downstairs and point it out to her. Stay for a cuddle. All settled. Off to bed I sneak, again
5am. This is the killer one. SOOOOO loud. This is the "Where am I? Where's mum? Am I still alive? What's happening?" one. I come downstairs, pick her up, cuddle her and snuggle down on the sofa together till she gets fed up and goes back to bed ok again. I remain on the sofa till Scooter dives on my head for breakfast.

Except today.
I took one of my emergency-crisis-only Lorazepam last night. I can take one to help me sleep. Ha. I took two in the end. It is 4pm now and I am still sleepily relaxed. The mogs are fed, the carpet hoovered, sort of, the washing is on the line (in the rain) and mum is getting a lift from Luvbug up to our place later. If I had sounded alive when she called this morning I think she'd be here now, or I'd have gone to her.... but no, couldn't keep the sleepiness out of my voice. This was My Head Is Collapsing Inwards Day. I've had banana sandwiches and tea. I wore pyjamas till an hour ago. I only woke up at all earlier when Scooter clawed my eye open in a desperate "Anyone in there?"

So. Luvbug and mum here by 5.15 ish. I guess they will want feeding. Or something. I've no idea what. I am so tired. Can I go home now? Oh no, wait, I AM home.