Today wasn't the best of days weather wise. I had to drive to check on the house and through the country lanes the late days sun shone through the grey skies and gave a warm glow to the autumn leaves -it was quite stunning and made me think of course of what once was.
The house had a musky smell, the heating has been left on low (10 degrees) as per advice by the insurance company. I collected the mail, a small pile of mostly junk and letters addressed to mum from various charities she had supported with the their Christmas take on the year -ugh...sigh! I wasn't sure what to think as I had flashbacks to better times and deposited the post into the bin bag I had left -just in case. The house was silent and I didn't linger too long other than check the locks and inspect for any possible problems.
From there I drove on to do some toiletry shopping for mum. I was thinking how often she showers now in the care home compared to what little I could achieve at home -I guess that was a minor stab at the guilt I still carry. Anyway as I aimlessly wandered round the supermarket things began to fall into the trolly -some perks and little treats as well as shampoo and shower gel and of course tubes of steradent. I am not sure if the weight of none toiletries was more as the small pile of chocolate grew (a screaming guilt complex), I even popped one of each Impulse flavour into the mix. All topped off with mums fave drink -limonata -bingo, job done.
On the way got a call from the care home manager who wasn't the care home manager (confused.com). She was actually the care company ops manager who was overseeing the replacement of the previous interim manager -now I was very confused.com. Sometimes I wish my handsfree didn't work, it would save a lot of confusion! Turns out the last manager was only temporary after the one before that got sacked and a new manager is due to start -to be honest at this point I had stopped listening and was doing the add-in sounds 'yup' 'mmm', until she said they were building a visiting pod. I shreeked with laughter 'a what?'. Better than nothing although I am not sure how that is going to work. Anyway she closed by telling me how mum is in that patronising way some professionals have to which I reverted back to the autpilot responses 'yup' 'mm'. Bless her, perhaps best being an ops manager.
I arrived and realised what I thought was only a small bag was actually huge and filled with goodies -ooops! Mums nurse F was on but busy so couldn't meet me at the door, but the receptionist who is brilliant filled me on things and they hoping to start visisitng very soon with the new pod -uhm, ok thats great but I am not sure you'll get mum into an 8ft by 8ft pod, though I was impressed that they had done something at least.