Vol 4. The Diary. January & February 2012

2 January 2012

Went to visit mum. She complained about her painful “bumps” on her leg.

Me: Did you tell the doctor about your painful bumps?

Mum: No!

Me: What made you decide not tell him?

Mum: I wish I was dead.

Me: Did you speak to my middle sister at the weekend?

Mum: No. No one phoned me.

Me: That's strange. She phoned me to ask where you were. She'd tried phoning you several times.

Mum: I'm not answering the phone. I don't want any of you knowing how I feel.

Me: Just as well no one phoned, then. Saved you the bother of not answering the phone.

Mum: I'll never forgive you. Your father LOVED me. She said, pointing to an old birthday card from him and photo of dad on the mantelpiece

Me: Do you want any shopping?

Mum: I don't want you to get anything for me.

Me: I'll just look in your fridge & freezer. She had 5 pints of milk. More than she had when I did shopping for her a few days before. Where did it all come from? And she hadn’t eaten any of the meals I’d bought for her.

Me: You have enough milk and meals. Can I get you any other shopping?

Mum: Get out my house. I never want to see you again.

Me: Well if you change your mind, give me a ring.

Mum: I'll never ring you.

Me: I've got all your banking things.

Mum: I want you to bring them all back.

Me: Phone me when you actually need them.

Mum: Give me my door keys back.

I handed over the keys and flounced out. Unfortunately, when I got to the car I realized I had given her my car keys by mistake. Had to go back, exchange the keys, and flounce out all over again.

4 January 2012

Mum phoned me to apologize!  It's amazing what a double flounce will achieve.

Actually, she just needs my help.

She also phoned my middle sister (now in mum’s good books) to tell her that she’d apologised. I think mum’s apologies are so rare they need to be broadcast.

31 January

My parents have been guilty of gross fraud.  For legal reasons I’m not putting anything down in writing.

Had a meeting with nice lady from Pension Service who started asking awkward questions. She wanted to see bank statements and noticed the income from the charity for Distressed Gentlefolk. She made me phone them in her presence, to get detailed information about how much and how long they have been receiving money from them. She started to ask questions about large sums going out, to whom and where the receipts are. She wanted copies of bank statements going back to before dad died.

If this isn’t proof that I love my mother, I don’t know what is. To prevent her being sent to prison. I cancelled making any further claims.

.

1 February 2012

Mum, "feeling funny" pulled the emergency cord and was taken by ambulance to hospital at 1.00am this morning. The hospital phoned me and I told them that she hadn't been eating properly since dad died and so no wonder she was feeling funny.  

Went into Exeter to visit mum. According to her she has a “germ" in her stomach. They are going to keep her in overnight and hope to send her to Budleigh Salterton Hospital tomorrow. They want her to stay there until she is strong enough to go home and look after herself. I think she is disappointed because she doesn't really want to get better.

I think she is also disappointed that she is not as ill as she’d hoped. Her dizziness has been put down to vertigo caused by debris in her ear. (I think that means that her brains are leaking out and causing her to fall over.) She is threatening to discharge herself.

Went back to her flat and had a thorough look in her fridge. Yuck. The “germ” in her stomach is probably food poisoning, given the state of the food in her fridge. There was meat in there months past the use by date. Had a good clear out.

2 February

Visited mum in hospital and took some clothes for her in preparation for her transfer to Budleigh Hospital. More talk about discharging herself.

I was right. Just as I got home I had a phone call from the hospital to come and collect her; she is discharging herself.

When I arrived, mum was very angry with the hospital for the disgusting way they had treated her. She was very, very rude to the staff. They’d actually had the nerve to send a doctor of geriatrics to see her. She is insistent that she was not a geriatric. According to her this is tantamount to accusing her of being out of her mind and in need of putting away. "They put geriatrics in the workhouse." (We should be so lucky.) And after all that she has done for them! Earlier, she’d sent a ward orderly down to the hospital shop to buy 4 large boxes of chocolates for the staff.

On the way home she told me she’d discharged herself because she didn't want to go to Budleigh Hospital and be amongst a lot of old people. I told her that she was 90 and that the chances were that she would be the oldest and that therefore she would be spending time with "young people". It didn't wash.

Personally, I think she is attention-seeking because she said my middle sister hadn't bothered to phone her.  However, I know for a fact that my sister phoned her a couple of days ago on Sunday.

3 February 2012

Collected my dad's ashes today. Apparently the delay in collecting the ashes was because the urn had had to be especially imported from North Africa but had been impounded in France as part a suspected drug smuggling racket.

What mum doesn't know is, that there were too many ashes to fit into the wooden urn. (Dad had put on a lot of weight in later years – too many chips and doughnuts.) It didn’t seem right to be carrying bits of my dad away in a plastic bag so I asked the undertakers if they could gift wrap them for me. They said no, but would look into it for future clients.

Took the ashes to mum. No one ever phones her, so she wants me to buy her a budgie to talk to.

 

5 February 2012

Took mum to pet shop to buy budgie, cage, etc.

22 February 2012

Mum: My doorbell’s not working.

Me: When did it work last?

Mum: This morning.

Took doorbell apart to discover that it had no batteries inside just a jumble of wires.

Me: Have you taken the batteries out?

Mum: I've never touched it.

Me: This is an electric doorbell. Shall I phone the rental agents?

Mum: Yes.

I phoned the rental agents. They told me that the doorbell was wireless and the pusher button is not connected to the doorbell box directly but connected wirelessly to the doorbell that is plugged into an electrical socket.

I searched the whole flat looking for a doorbell plug in an electric socket. Nothing.

Me: Have you taken the doorbell plug out?

Mum: I haven't touched it.

Me: Well something must be different since it worked this morning. Who came this morning?

Mum: No one. No one ever comes to see me.

Me: Well how do you know that the bell was working this morning?

Mum: I haven't touched it. Phone an electrician to come and fit another one.

Me: We don't need an electrician. We just need to find the doorbell.

Mum: Just phone an electrician - I'll pay.

Me: Mum, you don't own the flat you can't just call an electrician. .

Mum: I don't care how much it costs. Get an electrician to rewire the doorbell.

Me: Mum, the doorbell button by the front door is wireless - it doesn't need a wire. It just needs the bell that should be plugged into an electric socket.

Phoned the rental agents again and asked if they knew which electric socket the doorbell was plugged into. She said she'd phone the owner and then phone me back. Meanwhile mum searched all the electric sockets again and insisted that she has found the doorbell. We had a heated discussion about the difference between an electric socket and a telephone socket.

Lady from rental company phoned and said: “I've spoken to the owner who says your mother has already lost one doorbell last September. It's plugged into the socked next to window in the sitting room. The owner took a photograph of it in case your mother lost it again.”

Me: Mum, there was definitely a doorbell plugged in by the window last September.

Mum: Well, I haven't touched it.

Me: Someone must have. When was the last time you actually heard the doorbell ring?

Mum: Well I don't know. No one ever comes to visit me. I've not spoken to a soul since last Friday.

Me: But I came last Saturday.

Mum: But you only just pop in and out.

Me: No. I did some shopping and then we sat and watched the Jeremy Kyle show from America.

Mum: No one ever phones me. I might as well not have a phone. Your brother-in-law phones his mother every Sunday morning at ten o'clock.

Me: Do you want me to ask him to phone you?

Mum - glare.

I then began a search of the storage cupboards, discarding the remnants of old Sky Boxes, telephones, CD player electrical plugs, DVD player, and everything else dad collected. Even searched her wardrobe. (Jewellery box with nothing in it.)

In the end I said I would go to the electrical shop in Exmouth and buy a new wireless door bell.

Mum: While you are there, can you get me a hand held Hoover? That budgie is making an awful mess on my table. (I sense its days are numbered already.) And while you are there can you get me something to clean the electric stove hobs.

Me: What's wrong with the hobs?

Mum: I can't get them clean. I've tried bleach and Brillo pads.

Me: Eeeeek ! You've taken the protective layer off the hobs and they've gone rusty!

Mum: While you are in the electrical shop can you get me a new stove?

Me: Who owns this stove?

Mum: It came with the flat.

Me: Mum, you can't just get rid of the stove, it doesn't belong to you.

Mum: But I can't have rusty hobs like that. I can't get them clean.

Me: You can't get them clean, because you've taken the protective top off. Are they working OK

Mum: Yes.

Me: Well then, there is no need to buy a new one.

Mum: But it looks dirty and I can't get them clean.

Me: It doesn't matter as long as they work.

Mum: But what will people say when they see how dirty they are?

Me: You told me no one ever visits. Who comes into your kitchen besides you and me?

Set off to electrical shop in Exmouth for a hand held Hoover and a wireless door bell. 45 minutes later, mother phoned me on my mobile.

Mum: Hello it’s me, just to let you know that the door bell is working fine now.

Me: How can it? The bell bit is missing!

Mum: Well its working fine now. So you don't have to get another one

Two minutes later she phoned again.

Mum: To be honest, I found the doorbell in the bureau. I always thought it was an electric air freshener.

I went to the electrical shop and bought a hand-held Hoover. When I got back to mum’s I decided to try the doorbell. Nothing. Can't hear a thing.

Me: I thought you said that the door bell was working.

Mum: It is. I plugged it in behind the TV.

Me: But the TV is so loud, you can't hear the doorbell. It should be plugged in over there in the socket by the window.

And as I looked toward the electric socket where the bell should be, I espied a brand spanking new hand held Hoover being recharged.

Me: What's that !!!!!!!!!!

Mum: Oh, I phoned the electrical shop in Budleigh and they've just delivered it. I thought it would be quicker than waiting for you.

Took my Hoover back to shop and got a refund.

23 February

Went to the dentist today to have a new crown fitted. In the middle of it all my mobile phone went off. The dentist said "Well, aren't you going to answer it?" I looked at the phone and said "It’s OK, it's my mother". The dentist said, "You should always talk to you mother no matter where you are." and insisted I answer it. So, sitting in the dentist's chair with half my face numb I arranged to take mum shopping, on the condition she said, that if we meet anyone I wasn't to disclose my age. She didn't want to be seen out with a pensioner for a son. (She made a joke! What’s going on?))

Anyway, I took her to the supermarket for one or two bits. We ended up filling a trolley. She kept forgetting that dad wasn't alive and wanted to buy things like big bags of Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire puddings and packets of frozen chips. When we got to check-out she made me put back all the ready meals and vegetables. We left the shop with umpteen bottles of bleach, crisps and tins of vegetable soup. (Plus a bottle of gin for when I visit her.)

She has bumps on her legs that are causing her a lot of pain but refuses to tell the doctor in case he cures them.

She again told me how my brother-in-law phones his mother every Sunday morning at 10am.

25 February

Emailed my sister to tell her stop her husband from phoning his mother every Sunday morning at 10am. It’s putting her in a bad light. Sister didn’t think mum’s phone was working because mum hadn’t used it to call her.

26 February

Middle sister phoned mum but mum was too “upset” to talk and put the receiver down.

27 February

Youngest sister reports that she phones mum a couple of times a week but that mum never picks up. It could be that the she has Jeremy Kyle and Judge Judy on so loud that she can’t hear the phone ring, or more likely she is using Caller ID to check who’s phoning so she can deliberately not answer.

28 February

My mother has actually phoned my youngest sister.  She phoned to ask my sister if she had mum’s phone number.  (This is always a guarded criticism by mum.)  My sister replied that she’d been phoning mum on that number since dad has died and got no answer.

I visited mum but she made no mention that she’d spoken to my youngest sister. If fact “no one” ever phones her. But again she mentioned that she has it on good authority that my brother-in-law phones his mother every Sunday at 10am. I suggested that may be she should be reconciled to all her daughters. She is favourable to the idea as long as they phoned her first, grovel, admit their sin, repent and ask her forgiveness.

Feeling brave, I told her that it was a mother's job to take responsibility and contact her daughters and put things right, especially at this terminal time of her life. To put it briefly, Hell will freeze over before she phones.