Honey-soy aubergine, roasted baby potatoes, salad; Nuii Coconut and Indian Mango
Today has been a long, long day. Mum has been looping on one particular symptom, to the point that, mid-afternoon, I begged her to please, please stop. Since then she has still been complaining, but apologising every other time, which I guess is an improvement of sorts?
Elsewhere, the carer today was the one who does as little as humanly possible: she does what has been asked – make sure mum is dressed, give her her meds, make her breakfast – but absolutely no more than that. She left 25 minutes early, having done no more than 15 minutes of actual work. They better not charge us for the full hour of care.
I arranged a GP appointment for mum’s tooth pain to be reviewed. It was first booked for tomorrow, but I couldn’t make the timing work so it’s now on Friday morning.
On Friday afternoon I will be going over to Shanklin to view another property, this one a ‘cottage’ that is actually a single-storey section of a much bigger late 18th century house. Those who have been with this blog from the start might remember that this whole thing started in a care home in Shanklin, so going back there would be very appropriate.
I decided not to view another potential flat, in Wootton (north of the Island, sort of halfway between Cowes and Ryde), as the video tour showed it had the oddest layout I have ever seen. A hallway has doorways to two bedrooms, a kitchen with a shower room off it, another kitchen / utility room with another shower room off it, then finally a living space that opens onto a garden with a dangerously broken looking deck, and a shed without a door. I cannot begin to work out why it’s been laid out like that.
(If you’re wondering, the flat I liked so much, with the river view, is still in the wind: I completed an application and am now waiting for a decision. I’ll let you know when I hear anything.)
For dinner I chopped an aubergine, mixed it in with a sauce of honey, soy sauce, and miso, and roasted it alongside some herby baby potatoes. The aubergine cooked down to buttery softness in a salty-sweet sauce, alongside potatoes which were potato-y.
For dessert, mum having eaten every other option, we had Nuii Coconut and Indian Mango ice creams. Like the berry ones we had last week (they’re on special offer at Tesco and I’m working my way through the whole range), they smelled far more strongly of fruit than they tasted. They’re nice, at least if you like white chocolate, but not a patch on the ice cream Snickers I am currently working my way through while mum watches the ubiquitous Strictly Come Dancing.
Tomorrow I am going to try out some mobility scooters, which could be very interesting: stand by for an info-dump of everything I learn in tomorrow’s post! At the very least it gets me away from the endless complaining for a couple of hours. Actually acquiring a mode of transport is a bonus at this point.
