Three cheese omelette, roasted Mediterranean veg, mini hash browns

Let’s start at the end of the day and work backwards.

I can hear church bells: the current downpour hasn’t stopped the weekly practice session.

Be careful out there please, readers in the UK and northern Europe: Storm Benjamin looks set to be a nasty one. It’s horribly soggy out there already, and the storm isn’t due to arrive in earnest until the early hours of tomorrow.

Dinner was a venture off-(meal)plan, as mum found the bag of Mediterranean veg in the freezer and gave me the full 🥺 to ask me to cook some for dinner. Mum took the larger share then, halfway through eating, asked if there were any more. I tried to answer, choked on a bit of pepper, coughed and coughed and coughed, finally caught my breath, and promptly sneezed. It was a lot of effort just to tell mum we’d eaten it all.

Mum spent most of the day complaining about her urinary symptoms, repeatedly asking “why isn’t anyone helping?” I explained that they’re trying to help but can’t do anything until her other symptoms are cured.

Then she complained about those symptoms, and asked what I was doing to help. I told her to give the cream from the doctor a try and, if it didn’t help, I’d call the doctor again.

Then she complained about the urinary symptoms, and how much she wants them solved, at such length I made the grave mistake of pointing out that she spent a large part of yesterday crying because she didn’t want to go to hospital.

That prompted more tears, and “I spoilt it all, didn’t I?”, and “I didn’t realise it was all my fault”, and so on and on. After that I went back to bland reassurance, to which mum responded with more tears and apologies for upsetting me.

There are some days when I just really can’t win.

As is the case with the DWP. I was woken this morning by a call from one of their numbers which, Google informed me, is associated with the health assessment team. That made me wonder if that department was aware that my benefits claim is now closed and the assessment, scheduled for tomorrow, doesn’t need to go ahead.

I called them, told them what had happened, and was informed that the assessment would go ahead, but that I didn’t need to be there. (Huh?)

A few hours later I got another call, asking if I would be attending the appointment. I re-explained the situation, and the DWP employee responded “OK, thanks, bye!” I have no idea whether the pertinent (good word!) information has been passed on, and/or if they will be calling me at 9am tomorrow anyway.

Not that it matters, really, as I will be doing as I was told and not taking part: my phone will be on silent and I may well still be asleep, unless either mum or Storm Benjamin have woken me up. 🤷‍♂️