Cheesy potato bake with salad; autumn apple compote and custard

I don’t think I have ever come as close to throwing something at mum as I have today.

The antibiotics for her UTI are already kicking in, meaning she has felt well enough to get up. That means she is also well enough to complain, over and over, that she keeps needing to wee and can’t I do something?

I have said “you’re on antibiotics, but they don’t work immediately” so many times that I think I’ll be saying it in my sleep, but that’s not the answer mum wants so she keeps repeating the question. What she wants, I think, is for me to snap my fingers and fix her illness, and my failure to do so is taken as a personal insult.

I have taken to counting to ten in my head before answering, which has driven mum to “don’t you like me anymore?” or “you don’t care about me, do you?” Nothing I could do or say stopped the endless talk about urine.

And here I will stop that subject, so as not to inflict the same terrible fate on y’all.

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Unfortunately, other than succeeding in not throwing anything at my mother, I haven’t done much today. Suki vanished into hiding early on, so I sat alone on my bed, dipped in and out of my book, and tried not to scream when mum appeared in the doorway for the fourth time in ten minutes and I had to once more say “you’re on antibiotics, but they don’t work immediately”.

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For dinner I cooked a Tesco potato bake, with extra cheese on top. Mum took nearly 45 minutes to eat hers, as she kept asking me if “anything can be done” about her needing to wee so often. Eventually I sighed and told her that, no matter how often she asked, the answer would remain the same.

“What answer is that?” asked mum.

I can’t believe I had to say it again, but: “you’re on antibiotics, but they don’t work immediately”.

For dessert I stewed some apples, raisins, and mixed spice to make an autumn apple compote as, despite it being the late summer bank holiday, the weather outside is distinctly autumnal. With some custard, it was like a hug in a bowl, and I really needed a hug after today.

On Tuesday I have a hospital appointment over on the mainland. I’m planning on tying it in with a trip to a restaurant that specialises in regional Indian street food, which I have wanted to go to for some time. Atm I’m not sure if it’s the spicy food or simply escaping from the endless toilet talk, but either way I’m almost literally counting down the hours until I can go.

For now… I guess it’s time to repeat my current catchphrase, “you’re on antibiotics, but they don’t work immediately”. I suspect I’m going to say it many more times before I can escape to bed, too.