Gloom, Doom and Cookies

2006-05-24, 3:43 p.m.
Hellooooo!

Firstly, BF sends his sincere thanks for all the goodwill messages we�ve received while his mum�s been so poorly. Its nice to know that people are thinking of us.

I just haven�t had the time to read all your updates over the last few days, but as soon as I get the chance I�ll have a big update-fest and send loads of comments about things you�d forgotten you�d done!

Mum is now home, having had all her wiring and tubes taken away on Monday. We�d been told she would be getting round-the-clock nursing care but at present she has only half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. Yesterday evening a woman turned up and wasn�t able to provide any more constructive services than to offer to wash her face and to make a cup of tea. BFs sister is camping out on the sofa and has had a speedy and perfunctory lesson in �the administration of morphine to the terminally ill� and then left to her own devices. We have been told that, on no account are we to attempt to take mum upstairs for a bath as its �too dangerous to carry her up the stairs� and that we could �hurt ourselves�. Bearing in mind that she is so frail now that she weighs less than a little bird and BF and his sis are both pretty substantial kind of people, this sounds a bit unreasonable. There�s no downstairs bathroom in her house.

Yesterday evening when I got home from work, I had to do some preparation for a dinner party � we had some friends visiting from Germany. BF came in about ten minutes after me. He looks like he hasn�t slept for a month. Its tragic to watch a man cry so much that the tears are literally falling from his eyes and splashing onto the table. He�d spent the afternoon at his mum�s house, just holding her hand and talking to her � she�s so full of morphine that she hardly really knows that he�s there, but she did squeeze his hand once or twice and I�ve tried to explain that that�s really the best he can expect at the moment. We�ve had a couple of conversations about dignity and quality of life and, to be brutal, I think its better if her time comes sooner rather than later. I don�t know if I would be able to be quite so be quite so pragmatic if it were my mum.

I sent him upstairs to wash his face just before the guests arrived and five minutes later he was back downstairs, all smiles and joviality. Once a performer, always a performer I guess. Just for the record, I made a peppery, gingery chicken casserole with pesto potatoes followed by grilled butterscotch fruit kebabs with dark chocolate sauce. My dear friend Simone drank a whole bottle of red wine and had to be spooned into the back of my car for a ride home. And�Get this, get THIS�.I had a text from Badassrocker mid-dinner! Dear readers, I am truly blessed.

Ooo, and DOUBLY blessed by the most spiffing gift from Simone. In very concise terms, it�s a bag made from a zip but that Sooooo doesn�t do it justice. Im taking photos this weekend and posting for your delectation.

Also under the sub-heading of �what the fuck can I write about that isn�t all doom and gloom� � took Jooj and Wee Treacle to the Gifted Children thingy at the weekend. IT WAS FAB! Im still of the opinion that the mummies and daddies are, on the whole, the worst sort of people and not PLU at all (People Like Us), but this weekends activity was at a proper demonstration kitchen � no parents allowed (we sat outside and had a coffee together, thus re-enforcing my belief that I would happily cross the street to avoid talking to pretty much all of them), we could only gawp guppy-like through the window at their efforts. Which were considerable. At the end of two hours, we had a box of savoury scones (pinwheel style, with ham, cheese, basil and tomato filling) and a box of SERIOUSLY delicious cookies with big lumps of white and dark chocolate in. When I get my shit together enough to post the pictures of my new zippy handbag, I�ll also include the Geek Convention Cookie Recipe. Promise.

I wish wish wish that it hadn�t been such a long way away as both girls really enjoyed themselves and Ive since learned that there�s a cookery school on Saturday mornings which would be a fab way of wasting a bit of time.

Im writing this at work as I dont seem to have a lot of spare time at home at the moment.....Joojs school just called to ask me to go get her as she's not feeling well. My life just gets better and better.

Later
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