Tempura carrot wedges, katsu veg, rice

Overnight I went from being a cook to being the meal, and woke up covered in mosquito bites. Everything itches, and my left eye looks like I’ve been punched where one of the little buzzies bit me just below my eyebrow.

❌️🦟

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Once again, this morning mum refused to get up. She languished in bed, lamenting how she wished she could get up but she just felt too ill.

When that failed to draw more than lukewarm sympathy from me, she started crying that she “knew I didn’t like her”. I said only “I refuse to dignify that with a response”, at which point mum discovered that she was perfectly capable of getting out of bed after all. It’s a miracle! /s

I chivvied mum through getting dressed, although she refused to remove the vest top she has been wearing for nearly a week, day and night, so it can be washed. I decided I just didn’t have the energy to argue, and she can smell if she wants to.

Then she wanted me to accompany her into the garden – “or are you too busy for me?” I did go out in the garden, and found that the dahlias are properly out in flower and look gorgeous.

I spent the rest of the day fighting with Gmail, trying to sort out my ridiculously over-burdened inbox. That I now have just under 15,000 emails, and this is a dramatic improvement, says a lot, I think!

I also contacted a local lettings agency about a ‘ground floor’ flat in Newport, which is apparently actually a first floor flat, and provided answers to the long list of questions which are needed to be granted a place on their notification list.

At mum’s continued request, I contacted a couple of dentists to try and find someone who will provide the second opinion recommended by the rheumatologist. Overhearing that conversation sent mum into a spiral of anxiety, again.

Not that that made a huge amount of difference to me, as mum has been in and out of my room like a particularly fretful yo-yo all day anyway.

The problem with this is that, by the time I came out of my room to cook dinner and spend quality time with mum, I’m so sick of her that even the most innocuous comment makes me want to snarl at her. I did, however, have to hide a laugh when mum told me of her satisfaction with the clean laundry that has materialised on the dryer, as if I hadn’t hung it there a few hours earlier. 🤣

After a dinner of tempura carrot wedges (“they’re OK actually”, was mum’s review), with rice and veg in katsu curry sauce – or a tiny amount of rice and salad for mum, as the katsu sauce got a “no” – it’s tv until bed. Or until I can’t take any more of mum asking if I can help her, as if that’s not what I spend pretty much the entirety of my life doing, and try to find an excuse to go and hide in my room.

I just hope no more mosquitos decide to join me: I’m really not keen on their kind atm.