Thai stirfried mince with rice; banana and custard

This morning, for the first but surely not the last time in my caring journey, I lost my temper with mum.

I had already been awakened twice by mum complaining of stomach pain; the third time I gave up on sleep, put in my contact lenses, and staggered as quickly as I could to mum’s side, only to find she had dozed off again.

I reminded her that the pain is mostly caused by anxiety – “I’m not anxious”, despite the visit to the hospital on Monday having been mentioned at every point of waking me up.

I tried to advise taking a couple of deep breaths – “it hurts too much!”

I know it hurts: it’s because you’re tense. If you try to relax – “it’s not fair!”

I lost it. “What’s not fair is me being permanently disabled and stuck here caring for you!” 😳

Then I took my own advice, took a couple of deep breaths, and apologised. I said I was sorry (which I was), that I didn’t mean to shout (which I didn’t), and that I didn’t mean what I said (although I kinda did. It’s not fair, but the difference is that I recognise that ‘fair’ has no bearing on the situation).

I then played a guided meditation / breathing exercise on YouTube, for us both to practice along with. I initially thought I benefitted more than mum, but as the morning wore on she was noticeably calmer and complained less, so maybe it did help. Or maybe she just didn’t want me to shout again. 🤷‍♂️

For dinner I tried a new Simply Cook recipe, Thai basil pork, except with chicken mince instead of pork. The bit I tried out of the pan, to check the seasoning, had an overwhelming amount of chilli which caught the back of my throat and made me cough. Unfortunately that may have put mum off, as she said it was too spicy for her even though I didn’t think there was any real spiciness to it.

Tomorrow I’m planning to cook an old family recipe for nut roast, which my dad invented (or possibly sourced somewhere and amended to taste) when my sister became fully vegetarian in her early teens. (Before that she was only mostly vegetarian, having never much liked eating meat or fish.)

It’s very tasty, and quite simple, and I will share the recipe with y’all in tomorrow’s post. One thing it isn’t is spicy, containing nothing stronger than a bit of black pepper, so if mum finds that too much then I really will decide it’s nut fair.