MORE RAIN

10am
I've decided to start posting to this blog in earnest again. I began keeping it as I felt like I was bottling things up (hence the enquiry I posted about counselling). I stopped because I thought no-one was reading it, it had started to feel like speaking endlessly into a dead phone, or trying to fill a dry lake by pissing in it, if anything it was making things worse . However, when I discovered Sarah (my ex) had been following it religiously - this made me feel retrospectively a lot less isolated, just knowing that someone was there with me as the events unfolded. It also gives me a stronger sense of the passage of time - if I don't reflect on them the days can just blur into one.

Nor is it practical to write it in big chunks, as I have been doing - I didn't complete last night's entry until 1.30am, so didn't manage to wake up until 9.30am. Mum is getting up later than she was, but its still about half seven.

I found Mum in the kitchen making us both coffee. I arrived just in time to stop her from adding tea-bags to the sticky brown liquid in the bottom of the cups. She'd probably have remembered that the hot water goes next if I hadn't arrived and distracted her, but I had to stop her filling up the remainder of the cups with more milk while the kettle boiled. I try to be discrete and soft when offering this kind of assistance, but its tricky, particularly when you're ill and have only just woken up. She was becoming a little short and fractious following my interventions, so I took a step back - she immedietely grabbed the jug of milk and poured the whole lot into her coffee. I stepped forward and she shrieked at me and waved her hands.

'It's not a problem, Mum, yours is just a bit cold, that's all, we'll put it in the microwave'.

We put together a shopping list - eggs and milk. I thought I had a moment to use the loo while she drank her coffee, but I could hear the door going the moment I sat down. Fortunately I had not started, so was able to intercept before she shut the door beind her - with her bag and money which she had forgotten. This time she thanked me for the assistance.

Got to go, shes at the door now.

11am
Mum had already eaten, so I made myself some eggs while she made herself another coffee. This time I just let her fill the cup with cold milk. Unless she does something dangerous its better to just let her get on with it. She's not with it today, not really agitated like Monday, but not finding things easy or enjoyable. She shrieked at me yesterday too, when I brought her some bread. She had cooked the eggs and bacon perfectly, but was pulling faces as she chewed great spoonfuls of 'I Can't Believe it's Not Butter', sat on her plate where her toast was meant to be.

She pulled the same face today as she tasted the cup of cold coffee she had prepared. She didn't shriek, but quietly poured the cold coffee into a pan, then placed it on the stove and waited. When she turned her back for a moment I turned the stove on and sat down to watch 'In The Night Garden' (basically  Teletubbies without the televisions on their tummies).

Mum joined me a minute later with a steaming hot cup off coffee.

'That looks like a nice latte, Mum'.

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