Tuesday

It is really really difficult to strike the right balance between helping Ma to help herself and taking over. I am very aware of this and try very hard not to jump in immediately when her wheels appear to be spinning.

Today she was on a mission to go out for lunch which is fine and I do encourage it because it gets us out of the house for a few hours, it involves food and it isn't shopping. Several places were suggested and then rejected before she settled on a pub, the name of which she couldn't remember, but she was adamant that she knew where to find it. (insert sinking heart smiley here: 'We go up the road and along and it's on the side...) Unfortunately and fairly unsurprisingly we didn't find it but I did try, truly I did. The fact that we couldn't find it resulted in quite a few tears in the car and she was calling her self stupid and useless.

In the end we had a very nice lunch here:

http://www.owdbetts.co.uk/AboutOwdBetts/AboutOwdBetts.htm

somewhere I haven't been for about 30 years! Ma had fishcakes ('and a few chips' :D) and I had a cheeseburger sans bread with salad. During the meal she went from sobbing because the music wasn't anything Dad would know to dancing along in her chair to M People. It's a white-knuckle ride I tell you!

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Just helped her to bed. She's convinced we are going somewhere tomorrow and I am not about to disabuse her of that notion. I'll deal with it in the morning.

However my ex-SIL is coming to take her out tomorrow (hopefully) so that will please her but obviously I haven't told Ma to avoid the 05:30 start and sitting on the edge of her seat for five hours.