Goslings!

Several months ago I picked mum up from a brief stay at the care home and as we drove home she suddenly said 'Goslings!'

I asked why she'd thought of goslings and she looked a bit confused and said 'Because they're nice - unlike SOME things!' - a dig at the care home (it's perfectly fine as far as I can tell - but mum would rather be at home.)

Then every time since, at some point on our way home she's said something about goslings! I have no idea why! Neither do my sisters. She lived on a farm until she was 8 and her mum raised chickens from eggs, but not goslings.

(There's a photo showing my mum aged ?3 with her mum and a flock of geese in my 'extra' photos today. And in case you wonder what B'Joan means - when she was tiny mum thought that was her name as people would say 'How's baby Joan today?' .. and things got a bit confused in a little girl's mind! This page is from a book my sister Hilary made for her of her life in Cornwall)

I'd been meaning to take mum to see some goslings but hadn't got around to it. I'm taking her into residential care tomorrow as I'm just not managing to get ready for next week's departure to Canada, while caring for her. I hate leaving her there for so long - I really worry about her deteriorating - or worse - dying in there while we aren't even in the country.

So - even though this might make me seem a bit of a drama queen - today's trip to the park was as much for me as it was for her.If she died while we're away and I hadn't taken her to see the goslings I would never be able to forgive myself.

It was quite cool and blowy, but I wrapped her up well (though to my shame, I see I forgot to lock the right foot support :\ )

It took a while to find any goslings at all - but eventually we found several families of different ages, and fed them some very healthy 'proper' duck food.

When we'd had enough of geese I asked mum if she wanted to go home, or go to the little zoo .. to my surprise she wanted to go to the tiny park zoo. So in we went and saw a displaying peacock and all sorts of caged birds (I'm not keen on caged birds, but we'll gloss over that!) .. and fallow deer and wallabies and emus (or possibly ostriches!)

She loved it.

After lunch my new friend Pam (who I met at the same time I was savaged by the mad vigilante) came over and we sat in the summer house and the foxes came and posed nicely for us ..  then we all ate cream cake and strawberries.

This feels a bit like a school 'what I did in my holidays' essay!

Sorry for the waffle and bad photos!