A Certain Foreboding

The sky held something of the title of today's blip in it. Mum not answering her home phone when I called her from Cadaques this morning unsettled me a little more - probably in the shower, I thought. Further attempts to get through later were fruitless, so I began the investigation procedures. I got hold of the lady who we contracted to help with shopping or cleaning a couple of years ago (whom Mum has refused to use) to go round on her Sunday afternoon to check out the situation. She went willingly and reported no answer to the doorbell and, worse, the curtains at the front were still drawn. The alarm bells sounded a little more. I asked Val to call the police and alerted my sister, on holiday on the Isle of Wight. The number she had for the key holders who respond to the alarm buzzer strung around Mum's neck was out of date. The police took ages to arrive. We speculated that Mum may have drawn the curtains to reduce reflections on her TV screen as she watched the French Open tennis final and had the volume turned up, but this didn’t explain the non-answering of the phone this morning nor the lack of response to the blue-flashing light that shows in her living room when the doorbell is pressed.

I phoned a local Cadaques taxi driver and he couldn’t get me to Barcelona airport for the last flight out tonight. We booked new bus tickets back to Barcelona very early tomorrow morning and researched flights, finding a Barcelona-Malaga-Prestwick option at over €500 euros each with only three places left. Do we book or not . . . plus we would have to pay cancellation for tonight for the Cadaques hotel and pay a taxi €280 euros to get us back to to Barcelona tonight for the 5am rise to Malaga tomorrow - the holiday weekend meant that all direct flights were chock a block. We reviewed our agenda to see what would have to be cancelled in the coming week, at least. Then the phone rang and it was a visitor to Mum's new neighbours saying that Val was on the phone to the police who had traced Mum to Inverclyde Hospital, so she was, at least, alive.

Dd looked up the hospital number and I spoke to the nurse in charge. Mum had been admitted yesterday - yes, yesterday - morning, with nausea that they think is vertigo. She's ok. She may not be, after she hears from me on how a single short call or message from her or the hospital at any time during the last 36 hours may have prevented us moving into full alert this afternoon. It's not that hard!

In all, seven different parties were activated and involved this afternoon, including the police force who, frankly, could have been saved their involvement. All's well that ends well, but . . . double, double, toil and trouble: fire burn and cauldron bubble . . . new procedures will be established 'ere long! Watch this space!