Tuesday 6th of October 2020 - Daily Trials with Mother.... My back is so bad!

Have you ever had one of those days when you feel you will burst in to tears at the slightest thing, even if someone said Hello to you?  Hmm well I seem to have had one of those weeks, due in part to me forgetting to take my 'Happy pills'! Until two years ago life seemed to flow along on an even keel, until one day I virtually had a breakdown and ended up taking tablets for a little while.  Thankfully with help, I soon felt much better and I was weaned off the tablets.  However soon after the Covid 'Lockdown' happened and Mum was isolating, it wasn't long before I had to speak to the Doctor again and reluctantly resort to the pills again.  Which is fine so long as I remember to take them , but goodness knows what happened this week.  I guess it's just been one of those trying weeks, what with Gary having to self isolate as he happened to be in a club at the same time as someone who later tested positive for Covid.  I wouldn't mind but he wasn't even in the same room as the bloke!  Plus last week I heard that the community centre where I work would be closing indefinitely and so the House Manager and myself would be 'let go' at the end of October! so not a good week, my head has felt like 'custard' since and I have not been organised at all.

Hmm thankfully I didn't have to isolate, but as I couldn't drive last week due to my wrist recuperating, that meant that my sister Michelle had to go and pick up Mum's Tesco Click n Collect shopping.  Simple you may think, but since the full moon on October 1st, my Mum has done nothing but complain!! Last Thursday and Friday all I heard was Mum asking "When do you think Gary will be able to come and sort out my shelf in the electric cupboard?" or "Where do you think we can go for my Birthday? I thought I would deliver a plate of party food for each of the neighbours as we cannot get together!" If I told Mum once that Gary was isolating I must have told her fifty times!! Until we were finally able to go round on Saturday and my darling husband fitted the wanted shelf which took him three hours.  No Gary isn't a D.I.Y. champion, but he does like to do a good job, even though he knows nothing is ever good enough for my Mum!  So while Gary was fitting the new shelf, I sat while Mum literally went through her Tesco Shopping receipt item by item.  Plus discussed the Birthday plate delivery which I told her wouldn't be allowed with the latest local Covid rules. First she wasn't happy that she had been charged £1.50 for the click n collect service.  Normally I hide the charge within our two lists and split the cost between us.  However since Mum accused me of not paying her for our shopping, which I most definitely had! I made the decision to just get our own shopping at the local Co-op or Home Bargains, then told Mum that there is now a charge for the click n collect charge, as I still cannot cope with going into the supermarket for her shopping.  However after her moaning she will be lucky if she gets any shopping this week. After she went through each item telling me how she could get one item or another cheaper at the £1 shop or Morrisons or Home Bargains, that she wasn't happy with the 3 play toilet roll which they had sent - yes! I told her that I had actually ordered it after she wasn't happy with the last packet!!  Then she wasn't happy with the Tesco Danish Loaf which they had substituted for the Warburton Danish Loaf - which they had obviously sold out of!!  After three hours of non-stop moaning, all of which Gary overheard, as we drove home Gary said 'that is the last time we do any more shopping for your Mum at Tesco's!'  

Sunday I popped to swap two of our toilet rolls for Mum sub standard Tesco rolls!! However I didn't stop as having stood on the Prom' waiting for our local MP to run past while completing his virtual Marathon, my back was absolutely killing and No! I didn't see him run past my waiting point at the Glitterball, so that was ninety minutes of my life that I will never get back, wasted!  So I wasn't in the best mood when I called at Mums and when she started moaning about her shopping again I soon left.  However I was pleased to see Mum at last sorting out some of the many nick nack's in her front room, possibly because it's her 85th Birthday on October 12th, so I know she is expecting my sister Alison and her husband to come up from Norwich - even though I have told her that she is not allowed any visitors!!

Monday at half past eight, Sue, Mum's next-door neighbour rang me saying 'Karen I think you had better come round, your Mums in bed and says she cannot move, she's pulled her back!!' I cannot write what I was thinking as it was a lovely morning and so I had planned to pop round and say to Mum that I would drop her down Highfield Road as she had said almost every day that she wanted to wander round there.  Well that was that idea out the window and a shame as it was the first time I was going to drive properly and knew Mum would be happy to get a taxi back while I went to the park to volunteer.  Hmm so much for that plan!!  Goodness knows what Sue thought I could do, I told her that every year Mum does this near her Birthday, does too much in one way or another and ends up being poorly!! Mum had mentioned that her back was aching the previous week and I had suggested she visit the private Physio she normally sees, but she was adamant she wasn't going to waste her money on that!! Whereas now with her back in spasm she couldn't see anyone only take painkillers and ibuprofen - even though she tells me she is allergic to it!  Yes I did try to help Mum, made her breakfast and a drink and helped her put her 'Revitive' machine pads on her back to see if that helped - which it seems it did.

Today we were both due to go to the Doctors for our Flu jab, so as it was absolutely throwing it down I would pick Mum up and take her even though her appointment was twenty minutes after mine.  This meant us sitting in the car chatting until it was time for Mum to go in.  Unfortunately Mum's back wasn't much better but this was probably due to her sleeping on the sofa instead of the orthopaedic bed that she has in her bedroom!!  When I pointed this out, Mum said 'Well I don't care that it's an orthopaedic bed I know where I am comfortable!!' Mum told me that she was going to go shopping at Aldi before my sister Michelle took her to the Dentist this afternoon.  When she told me this, I asked 'Are you mental? Have you seen how much it's raining and you won't be able to walk round from Waterloo Bridge to the Dentist.' Humph said Mum 'Well I need to get some shopping!' Bearing in mind that my Mum had had her usual £40+ worth of food shopping the previous week, I really wondered what could be so urgently needed. As you can imagine our 'chat' soon became fraught, until Mum agreed I could drop her at Morrisons before I took her broken Curtain Track back to B&Q - don't ask, that is another story!! 

Anyway after struggling to walk into the Doctors, getting soaked through in the process, Mum asked me to take her home and said could I pick up some pale celery and strawberries for her, while I was out.  As we drove to the Highfield Road Traffic Lights I took a sharp right down Highfield Road, we have had several arguments about the celery that I previously picked up for her which was unsuitable, so there was no way I was going to go through that again.  We pulled up outside the Fruit n Veg shop and I told Mum to jump out and buy her own fruit n veg then they couldn't be wrong!! 

I know you are probably thinking that I am so cruel, but as all of this is on top of trying to make arrangements to do 'something special' for my Mums 85th Birthday, which are obviously restricted due to the local lockdown, I really cannot take much more. Hence our plan to go to the Highfield Pub - my Mums choice - for lunch, so there are less people and less chance of catching anything, then the plan is to go on to a Garden Centre somewhere.  Not sure where but no doubt there will be more to report come next Monday ....... if it's not one thing it's my Mother!