Smoky bacon noodles

I had to go out at lunchtime today, to get some blood taken to try and find out the cause of yesterday’s early morning drama. (Yesterday? Or the day before? Whatever.)

Mum was very unwell this morning, unable to even get out of bed until about ten minutes before I left the house.

I’m not so much implying a connection as outright stating there was one: mum was unwell because I was going to be more than six feet from her side. I know this because a) when I got home, barely 40 minutes after leaving, mum was up, dressed, and watching television, and b) she admitted it this evening.

She doesn’t do it entirely consciously, I know, but at some level she’s happy to stage any kind of drama to keep me at her side at all times. Luckily I now know this so just went ahead with the appointment, but it’s been a long and frustrating day all the same.

It’s not helped by the fact she’s actually got a genuine problem: I forgot that mum’s headache meds don’t turn up automatically like all her others, so it was only when I went to open a new box that I realised we were out of them. Without them, mum’s headaches are back in full force, so she has been feeling genuinely unwell. It’s amazing how much worse they got every time she remembered I was abandoning her, though.

Anyway, I went out, got rid of a bit of excess blood, stopped at Tesco to get some apples (which I forgot to order and can’t possibly do without) and a reduced to clear Pyrex roasting dish (just £5.50 – how could I not?), came home and spent the rest of the day relaxing.

LOL, of course I didn’t: I’m an unpaid carer.

Mum was complaining of toothache, so I called her dentist and booked her an appointment. The next availability they have is mid-March, but they have a waiting list of people who are willing to accept short-notice appointments if someone else cancels, so I got mum on that list. Hopefully any such appointment will be on a day when one of mum’s friends can take her, as I have a serious dental phobia and would prefer to stay as far away from such places as possible.

Then I called the pharmacy to ask if mum’s missing meds would be delivered today. Then I contacted the GP surgery to ask for her headache meds to be added to her repeat prescription list.

In between calls I reassured mum that her headache will go away, that I’m not angry at her for this morning’s snafu (and I’m not: more resigned to the situation), and that her various other conditions aren’t serious and are mostly caused (or at least are made worse) by anxiety.

I was looking forward to a dinner of a flavourful but mild chicken curry, but that was foiled by my failure to remove the chicken from the freezer.

Then I was going to do pad Thai with prawns, but mum said “we’ve had prawns a lot recently, haven’t we?”, which in mum-speak means my attempts to cater to her ever-changing tastes are not currently appreciated.

Then I was going to make pad Thai with bacon, because why not? Because I don’t have a pad Thai spice kit, that’s why.

So we ended up with noodles with bacon, egg, and sweetcorn, flavoured with nasi goreng spice paste, and it was really quite nice for such a mishmash of flavours.

Now it’s snooker on tv, which mum is watching and I’m half-watching while writing this, followed by a retreat to our respective bedrooms, at which point the pharmacist will probably turn up with mum’s tablets. I may still be awake to thank him, but I can’t guarantee it. 🥱