Croissants with smoked mozzarella and hot sauce, with salad and ranch dressing

The first important thing I saw when I woke up this morning was an expectant tabby face, which somehow managed to express the sentiment “about time you woke up, I want breakfast”.

The second important thing I saw was mum, on her way out of the bathroom.

“Good morning, mum,” I said.

Mum replied, almost without drawing breath, “my head hurts as it always does, I think I slept at an odd angle and my neck hurts, my stomach’s uncomfortable, and it’s too hot.” And disappeared back into her bedroom.

She didn’t stay there for more than a few seconds, though, before she was back and getting irritable because I couldn’t hear her from the kitchen, where I was giving Suki the first serving of food she had ever had in her life. (Or so she would have me believe.)

The rest of the morning was spent involved mum walking into my room, staying long enough to disrupt whatever I tried to do, then heading back into the living room. A few minutes later she would do the same thing, over and over and over again.

Around lunchtime, I headed into the living room to join mum watching the tennis.

“I just miss you so much when we’re apart,” said mum, referring to me spending a couple of hours sitting 10 feet from her, with nothing but open doors between us.

I sat down beside mum with my lunch – falafel, hummus, and cherry tomatoes. Mum wrinkled her nose in distaste, before concluding “it’s OK, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing. Which I don’t,” she concluded, in case I missed her point.

At least we had the tennis. Mum likes tennis, and we had a Brit to cheer on. But no: “I’ve seen this fella too much recently. I’m getting bored now.”

This afternoon I had my weekly online therapy appointment. I went and sat outside in the scant shade provided by a climbing rose, and assured mum, when she followed me, that I was fine. A few minutes later, I repeated that assurance. And again a minute or so after that.

Finally alone, I talked with my therapist about mum’s refusal to allow me any privacy, her use of her illness to manipulate me, her relentless crushing of any moment of peace or distraction I might experience.

“I don’t like to say it,” she said, “but this sounds very much like… I hope you don’t mind me saying it, but it’s…”

“Abusive? I know,” I said. “But I don’t see what I can do about it.”

…

I’m getting tired of doing repeated speech, so I’ll cut to the chase here and say my therapist is going to talk to the Safeguarding Team, and see if there is any way to move me and Suki to a safer living situation. I’m torn between feeling guilty at the thought of abandoning mum and taking the cat with me, and feeling pure excitement at the thought of living somewhere where I don’t constantly have to be alert for the next manufactured crisis.

I may not go ahead with it even if it is possible, of course, but merely having the prospect of an escape plan is enough to make me smile, which my therapist has noted I don’t do very often anymore.

For dinner I just stuffed croissants with cheese and baked them until the cheese was melty and delicious. Mum said she wasn’t hungry and only wanted one croissant, then added a pile of salad and two chocolate éclairs to her plate and doused the lot in single cream. This is, I gather, typical of dementia eating habits, and I have long since stopped arguing.

Now it’s the evening, and I am looking forward to a final hour or so of the day spent reading with Suki by my side. I just hope I don’t get a repeat of last night, with mum calling repeatedly through my door demanding to know why I wasn’t asleep yet.

Now I can think of having a room where no-one can bother me. Except Suki, who, to be fair, can be pretty demanding herself, but at least she’s feline enough to justify it.

Goodnight, all.