Creamy veg curry with garlic naan; far too much Oreo ice cream 🤢

Today has been another day that has passed with nothing much to report, apart from a moment of idiocy on my part where I sprinkled some seeds for birds (i.e seeds that grow into flowers that birds like) on a patch of ground next to one of mum’s bird feeders. Of course, you can guess what happened: rather than waiting for the plants to grow, the birds ate the freshly sown seeds. I will try again tomorrow, and cover them in compost this time!

For lack of anything else to write about, I will confide to my phone screen my worries that mum, always sociable, is retreating into herself. Another friend from her ever-shrinking social circle has been relegated to “drives me nuts”, leaving only two people (plus me) that she can currently stand.

One of those friends popped in today on her way home from church, and mum worried herself into physical illness once again at the prospect of seeing someone other than me. (I was woken at 7.34am by a plaintive call of “my stomach hurts”, and it didn’t stop hurting until the friend had been and gone. By that time, mum was more than capable of making the connection between cause and effect, but in the early morning all she can understand is that she’s in pain and wants me to make it stop.)

She doesn’t want to go back to church (“I couldn’t manage that now”), or to any of the many events and social groups in the village, or even down to the garden centre that’s a two minute drive from the house. All she wants is to stay at home with me, which is a problem as she doesn’t want me to go anywhere either.

I suggested therapy¹, to help her deal with her fears of the outside world and her place in it, and she tentatively agreed as long as the therapist comes here and I stay with her at all times. If I can find a therapist who will agree to that then I’m willing to do it: anything that helps mum be less fearful and less dependent on me is a win as far as I’m concerned. I completely understand why she wants to hold me close, but for my own sanity I need some time alone and away from the house occasionally.

Dinner tonight was a desperate attempt to get mum to eat something, as up to that point her food intake for the day was half of half a cheese sandwich (i.e a sandwich made with one slice of bread, of which she ate half), and a small bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. She agreed that a vegetable curry might be nice as long as it wasn’t too spicy, and what I made was so mild it barely qualified as a curry. She ate it, though, along with a couple of pieces of naan bread: with all that veg, plus creme fraiche to make it creamy, I figure she’s at least had some nutrients and calories today.

She followed it with some of her “nice food” (coffee ice cream, of course), and I kept her company with some Oreo ice cream. I had forgotten how moreish that stuff is and ate far too much of it, on top of a cream-based main meal, and my lactose intolerant body is now making its protests known. 🤢

I’ll see y’all tomorrow, when I’m hopefully feeling less green around the edges!

1. I didn’t call it that – I just said it would be someone she could talk to – as I suspect the idea of needing ‘therapy’ wouldn’t sit well with her. ↩︎