Sweet and sour ..

It was Mum's first art group since Christmas today - but she returned from it without any treasures or works of art - I'm not sure why ..

As soon as she returned I had to break the news to her that she was to go into respite for the weekend. As expected, her reaction was to say 'Oh, gosh' and look utterly defeated.

I gave her a little reminder that she hasn't actually been there for months. So she had lunch and off we went.

When we got there, the room I was told she'd be in (her 'usual' room) was locked. Then I was told that they'd decided mum was to go to the dementia 'side' of the building as she'd deteriorated so much and had spent much of her time trying to get out of the front door during her previous stay, so for her own safety .. blah, blah, blah ….

So off we went, through the locked door, to 'the dementia side' and waited in the office for someone to come for a chat. I felt rather concerned that there was a phone number on the whiteboard which should be rung if a particular resident started to behave uncontrollably. Then we were shown mum's room - the bed not yet made up and poo floating in the loo. Great.

I unpacked her things and we headed back downstairs .. and I could hear someone repeatedly shouting 'Hello? Hello?' from their room. It all felt a bit bleak.

Down to the lounge. I asked a lady if mum could sit next to her .. initially she had no objections (in the 'other' half, I was told 'She can't sit there - that's so-and-so's seat'!)

I felt quite hopeful - but then she started saying how she had no idea who my mum was and she needed to go and find her friends which she must surely have, as I said mum had been there before.

At this point someone at the other side of the lounge started screaming that they'd fallen out of their chair.

Poor mum - poor everyone. In April I have to have surgery and will need mum to go there for a few weeks - I can't imagine what it'll do to her. This weekend will be bad enough.

Anyway - after having a little weep and being told that mum would get better care as there are more staff in the dementia unit, I headed to the wolds.

I once saw a hare in this field, so slowed down in case he was sunbathing - and he was.

I was going to post a collage, but I prefer a big picture, I think.