My ears aren't burning, but they are definitely ringing

Yesterday was a no-show for Ma at the day centre. She wasn't poorly, just in the sort of mood which would have made the journey there too hazardous and I'm not willing to risk it, so she stayed at home and was moderately difficult and a bit slappy all day.

I was contacted by a journalist from the BBC's programme Inside Out wanting to talk to me about being filmed for a programme on elderly care and especially in my case a multi-generational family with one member acting as carer for an elderly member. This came about because I answered a tweet request for carers to answer some questions for the money section of the Guardian and was quoted in the article (which I only realised yesterday!). Inside Out want to come and do 'a few hours' filming. I am going to say no I think because it will affect Ma enormously and massively disrupt our routine for days. Plus I've been on tv once and utterly utterly hated every second of it.

She was in a better mood this morning - death threats aside - so off we went. I dropped her off as usual then went and had my 6 weekly treat (a pedicure). Bliss. Due to my apparent inability to operate a mobile phone I managed to miss all the calls and most of the text messages from Julia (the BBC lady) and feel a complete idiot. I put the phone on silent during my pedicure because the constant beeping and pinging from texts/emails/facebook upates and tweets doesn't make for a restful time and then forgot to put it back to normal. Abject apologies will be proffered tomorrow.

Collected Ma at 3pm. Several staff gave me 'that' look as I went in. You know, a slightly wide-eyed mixture of exasperation and sympathy. It seems that she was segregated with a member of staff on a one to one basis because she insisted on removing her clothes constantly and was aggressive when the staff tried to put them back on. Obviously they can't have her behaving like that in front of the other 'service users' (new one for me) because it upsets them. Getting her in her coat was a battle even before we got her to the car. One member of staff said she didn't know how I coped on my own and another said she felt sorry for me. As you know, I'm usually fairly matter of fact about it all but I must admit I very nearly cried at that point.

We put Ma in the back because the child locks are in place and that proved to be a good decision. I won't go on about the journey other than to say that although she couldn't get the door open she did manage to poke me in the head with the umbrella and wind the window down and then got soaked for her troubles - it's rained all day here.

Since coming home she has been a handful. All that has happened today has obviously wound her up so putting her in her nightclothes resulted in a barrage of slaps (hence the ringing ears!). She is now in bed.

I really hope she stays there.