Cheesy garlic doughballs and salad; plum and cherry crumble and custard
Today we had a visit from a social worker, to assess mum’s care needs. I didn’t tell mum about this in advance, as I knew she would just panic, but something triggered her anxiety anyway and she woke me twice overnight to ask when I was leaving. I bemusedly told her I wasn’t going anywhere. (The second time, anyway. The first time my reaction was more like “huh? Wut?” as I was fast asleep when she called out. This was apparently not the right answer, given the sulky “fine” that came through the wall as I laid back down.)
Getting mum up and dressed in time for the appointment was, as usual atm, a real battle, with tears, and “I can’t”, and “I feel terrible”, but we got there with about 10 minutes to spare.
The social worker was lovely – kind, patient, but very observant. She definitely picked up on mum’s insistence that she could do anything she was asked about, and gently challenged mum until she admitted that what she mostly meant was that I do the thing for her.
I suggested that mum might need help with personal hygiene, such as taking a shower. Mum cheerfully commented “oh, I can’t remember the last time I had one of those!”, which rather proved the point I was trying to make!
The social worker suggested that we employ a carer to come out every morning, to get mum out of bed, washed, dressed, fed, and medicated, to take that daily battle off my hands. Mum repeated “this is my house” multiple times, but eventually agreed to at least try it for a few weeks if I promised it could stop if she hated it.
Unfortunately, because she has to pay for her own care, the Council will charge a hefty fee to arrange care for mum, so it’s down to me to do it. I cried at the prospect of yet another job to do, and the kindly social worker offered to make the initial calls and find an agency that had space to take mum on as a client. She has already done this, so all I need to do tomorrow is respond to the agency to discuss mum’s needs and arrange a start date.
I very much expect that the first few days, or weeks, will be marked with repeated protests, tears, and other drama. If mum eventually allows someone else to handle the morning trauma routine, though, it will make my life maybe 20% less challenging. Maybe I will stop burying my face in Suki’s fur to try to hide from the coming horrors of the day, and instead just do it because she’s soft, and does an excellent impression of a teddy bear in the mornings.
I spent the rest of the afternoon playing telephone tennis with a community nurse: I think I won the final point of the day because I haven’t heard back from her to actually make a much-needed home visit for mum. Around 4.30pm, mum decided she had had enough of me waiting around, apparently doing nothing, and came to ask “how do I get some food?”
She of course knows where and how to get food, and just wanted me to do it for her. “Dinner will be at the usual time,” was my accurate but apparently insufficiently pleasing answer.
By the time I actually came to cook dinner, I was in no mood to do anything like actually cooking – having told the social worker earlier that I was determined to keep hold of evening meal duties – so was grateful for my forethought in stocking the freezer with things that could just be put in the oven.
The doughballs, from Tesco’s Sides range, were very tasty: even mum thought they were good, and I got a “very tasty” for the second night in a row.
Then we had plum and morello cherry crumble, with custard for me and cream for mum. It’s was a decently tasty crumble, although I had to double-check the box after the first couple of mouthfuls as all I could taste was apple and blackberries. Apparently plum is the biggest fruit ingredient, followed by cherries, but it does indeed include both apple and blackberries, presumably to bulk out the filling without making it unaffordable.
Mum really enjoyed it, somewhat to my surprise as it was slightly tart rather than sugary sweet as she usually prefers.
Now I’m so full of crumble that I feel slightly nauseous, while mum is ploughing through a tub of coffee ice cream with every intention of eating the whole thing. I really don’t know where she puts it all!
Tomorrow I have lots of calls and emails to do, to make up for doing not much of anything this afternoon. I am just hoping not to have another pre-dawn summons, so I have enough energy to do said communication. 🥱
