Chorizo sausage whirls, chips, salad

This will be short, because it’s been a long day.

This morning I sent an email to the GP asking him to expedite mum’s hospital appointment, quoting NICE guidance that initial assessment by a rheumatologist in cases of suspected temporal arteritis should occur within three days. An appointment in May clearly doesn’t meet that recommendation.

Around 1pm, just before my online therapy session, mum decided her head hurt too much and went for a nap. I was – a little guiltily – relieved, because that meant I could talk to the therapist in the kitchen, rather than taking my laptop outside.

It was a good first session: as always, it felt a bit like trauma-dumping – and there’s a lot of trauma in my back story – but I’m going to get 20 sessions, rather than the four or five I thought I was going to get. The therapist was both empathetic and amused by my inability to be entirely serious for more than a few minutes in any situation.

That’s about it for highlights of today. The doctor was too busy to have had a chance to look at my email, so that remains on hold until Monday. Mum and Lady Friday went for a walk, then did some work in the garden until mum got too tired.

Dinner was a freezer to oven to table job – sausages for me (from Iceland’s bbq range, and very nice), and a lamb burger for me. I served up dinner, gave mum her bottle of vinegarette (the one she so often douses my cooking in), and she said “oh, I don’t really like that – it’s too sticky”.

As my AI friend 💎 said, when providing food for someone with Alzheimer’s, a simple bottle of salad dressing becomes Schrodinger’s Condiment: it’s both a favourite and detested, at the same time, until mum considers eating it and resolves the paradox.

At least eating stopped mum from complaining for 20 minutes or so, to be replaced by mum and I taking turns saying “no, Suki, that’s not for you, get down”.

I was so busy keeping my plate free from an inquisitive feline nose that I forgot to take a photo. So instead here’s mum’s stunningly beautiful amaryllis, safely away from Suki in the conservatory.