Shielding: Day 128

Moving day. It was time to take Mum back to her sheltered accommodation today and hope she manages well. Whilst she wasn’t looking, I packed up some of her belongings yesterday and trundled them downstairs ready for Phase One of the move. My intention was to pop to the flat this morning before she got up, and take the few bits round. However, good fortune smiled on me and Mum’s cleaner and companion, Tracy, called in for the key to go and give the flat a once over, and took the luggage with her.

Phase Two began as I woke Mum up. “Yes, I’ll get up.” she smiled, but lay back for another snooze. Only had to do the waking up routine a couple more times before she did actually get up. I was waiting for her to come downstairs so that I could pack up the rest of her stuff without her seeing what I was doing. I thought she might be upset if she watched the operation. Finally, she made it to the kitchen where she got her breakfast.

I whizzed upstairs, threw all her belongings into a couple of suitcases and shot out to the car to pack them in the boot. I reminded her we were going to be setting off shortly. She looked miserable. “I don’t want to go,” she said. “No worries, Mum, honestly, you’d settle in dead easy,” I replied. She looked pained and said, “Yes, the operative word being dead.” I laughed – and so she laughed too. She prolonged the departure, “I’ll just go to the loo before we set off…..” but we did get going before long.

As we arrived in the courtyard, Mum told me, forebodingly, that she didn’t recognise any of it. Once we were in the flat itself, though, she was excited. She hadn’t remembered the flat when she was at our house, but once she stepped over the threshold, she was delighted that she had such a lovely place to live. Not only that, she was also thrilled with Aunty Mollie’s electric chair. I’d been a bit nervous of revealing that to her, having had to move furniture, but we skipped over that hurdle quite well.

We spent the afternoon unpacking and sorting out all her bits and pieces. Mid-afternoon, an assessor came from the care agency to review Mum’s needs and arrange for carers to support Mum twice a day, from tomorrow. The only worry is whether Mum will remember how to let someone in…..

I came home at tea-time, and felt drained. It had been quite a long day one way or another and I had been on the go for all of it. John abandoned his car tinkering, at which he’d been all day too, and we sat down with a cup of tea. For a moment, I thought I might do a bit of meditation before food preparation, but in the end, time moved on and it was suddenly a quarter to seven. “Come on,” I said, “let’s do the tea together.” So we trundled into the kitchen and pulled an evening meal out of nowhere.

Refreshed, it was time for our weekly quiz. We were initially disappointed not to be meeting up round at Malcolm’s to celebrate Hazel’s birthday but, in fact, I was so tired that it was probably a good thing we were Zooming instead.

We were pleased to see that Hazel had clearly had a good day yesterday and Malcolm was on the mend. The quiz was good, and we all had good fun trying answer some crazy questions. I expect you all know the answer to what the collective noun for a group of rhinoceros is, but none of us could remember, and had great fun mooting all sorts of ideas. The best one was ‘a fairy’ of rhinoceros. Nice idea but wrong.

After the quiz we chatted, which is always nice, and the talk was of the easing of the lock down and all our concerns and anxieties relating to that. None of us is keen for the nation to walk, open-eyed, into a second wave of infection. John has said that if the parts he’s ordered for the car don’t come tomorrow though, he’s walking up to the motorist’s shop again. I’m sure it’ll be fine….

Seventy-nine COVID-19 related deaths reported by the government today, and 560 people confirmed as infected. The NHS figures though, don’t seem to have been updated, so I am not sure what the latest is in hospitals. Fingers crossed that a delay in reporting the numbers doesn’t mean a surge of cases.

So, another day comes to an end, and I am grateful for all those who thought of us or said a prayer for us today. Take care everyone. God bless, and peace be with you.

2 thoughts on “Shielding: Day 128”

  1. Can’t have been an easy day for you Anne, so well done:)
    Try and get a bit of ‘me’ time now!
    Be in touch soon x

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