Black bean courgette with fried rice

When I left you yesterday, it was with the hope that I could have a day without anything breaking. You almost certainly won’t be surprised to learn that my wish wasn’t granted: around lunchtime, after a morning of panicking and emotional manipulating, mum dropped her spare pair of glasses, and a lens fell out of those too.

With both her vision aids broken, it was time for emergency action. I called our local optician and, despite us not being their customers, they agreed to fix mum’s glasses in exchange for a donation to their favoured charity, Sight for Wight.

One quick visit later, both pairs of glasses were fixed, and one of the causes of mum’s anxiety was resolved. (Thank you, Rutherford’s!)

I took the opportunity to pop into the little supermarket a few doors done, and acquired various sweet things. Mum has already eaten nearly all of hers, and has been casting covetous eyes over mine. It truly amazes me how much sugar a mum under the influence of steroids can put away!

Dinner was meant to be fish but, when I went to get it out of the freezer (the one that works, obviously!), I discovered it, plus some smoked fish and a box of fancy fish cakes, sitting on top of the freezer, where they had been since yesterday, when mum told me she had put them away. I literally turned away for 30 seconds, and in that time they got forgotten.

I hate that I’m going to have to start double-checking everything important that mum does, and don’t know how I’m going to do it without triggering mum into an “I’m just a stupid old woman” episode. These are a common ‘feature’ of living with mum and are, by my estimation, about 40% genuine distress and 60% a way to manipulate me into giving her the validation she craves.

Dinner instead ended up featuring courgette in place of the fish, in a a Simply Cook recipe box for black bean chicken. It was so salty neither of us could finish it, which is a rather appropriate summary of today, really.

And on that note, I will leave you with an image I see first thing in the morning, every single morning:

And on that note I will leave you, with the heartfelt wish that this time, really nothing else breaks!