Minted lamb, roasted Mediterranean veg, cheesy garlic flatbread

Today has been an unusually easy day in some respects: mum has been feeling “horrible” and spent most of the day in bed. That meant I had a day of quiet in which I could work on my book, play endless levels of my current favourite game (I will eventually get tired of beating people who have clearly paid loads of money when I haven’t spent a penny, but today wasn’t that day), and generally chill in the heat, watching the jackdaws form a relatively orderly queue for the new suet feeder.

The hard bit came when mum finally woke up, hot and confused, and I had to explain that I hadn’t been anywhere, that I now live in mum’s house with her (“I know that”, she snapped), that she hadn’t been anywhere either as she’d been asleep all day, that I didn’t know why her stomach hurt and couldn’t do anything about it anyway.

For me, the hardest part of being a carer is being solely responsible for the continued health and happiness of another human being, particularly one who often can’t comprehensibly describe what’s bothering her. (Anyone who has been a parent, particularly a single parent, will be familiar with this feeling, I’m sure, but being childfree it’s a new situation for me.)

One of our family friends is fond of saying that caring, like raising a child, is a job for a village, but on days like these the village seems suspiciously empty.

Dinner was meant to be veggie curry, but mum has had little appetite all day and I thought she wouldn’t eat enough of that, so I swapped with tomorrow’s planned meal and roasted some Mediterranean veg and pan-fried minted lamb chops. (From Tesco’s bbq range, and really not bad at all.) Mum ate half a lamb chop, some veg, and then declared she didn’t want any more.

Any hope that mum might have a calm evening was scuppered by a message from another friend saying she wants to drop in to say hello tomorrow, which has sent mum spiralling into panic again. I’m expecting an early morning wake-up again tomorrow, so I will stop here and possibly go and get a bit of the fruit pie mum has just opened.

Have a good one, everyone.