Oh dear...

I accidentally injured my mother today. Was getting so appalled by her diet of crunchy nut clusters, toast and marmalade, and her sky-high blood sugar readings, that I offered her some pistachios from one of my snack boxes.

Next thing, she was on the loo. And on the loo again, begging me to call a doctor, saying "I think there's a surgeon in the area". I did eventually help her back to bed, after the paracetamol kicked in, and she slept for many hours.

When she woke up, she thought she had attended her very long third wedding. She could not remember to whom she had got married. She said perhaps it had been 'wishful thinking'. I felt sad for her. We talked about her previous marriages and husbands, including the  night before her second husband had his stroke, when he'd asked her an unusual question. Maybe he'd known that Something was going to happen.

I went out to the shop and bought a weekend edition of a newspaper while mother slept, but I didn't dare go further in case she woke and found me absent. The sun was amazingly bright. All I managed to snap was this from-the -hall shot of the crags of Ben Lora. They have been deforested in recent years, so they still look naked, but colourful. 

Being a carer is hard. It's also hard for the cared-for person. I bet you no one does anything exactly right for them.

Because my mum had been asleep during the day, she stayed up late. It's a long time ago now (this is a backblip) but I think we watched many nature programmes back to back, on the laptop, because the TV remote control has been lost for some time. 

Nature programmes are safe to watch. So is anything about going to sea. Dramas with plots are harder to follow. The most important thing I would advise any dementia carer is to avoid getting drawn into any circular discussions that go nowhere. I don't think any of these happened on this day, but conversation could be tricky until I learned to sidestep the pitfalls.