Home... phew!

It's been a stressful few days, not helped by today's events, but before I tell you about that, a little bit about what else I've been up to.

Monday night saw me at dance class at Dance Base. I'd really like to do an over 60's ballet class, but it's fully subscribed and next term I'm not sure I'll be around enough to be able to justify my booking it. I'll have to wait and see. But at least the class I did was a good one from an exercise perspective. And then on Tuesday I started a philosophy class in Edinburgh. It was actually very interesting. It's a 10 week course on basics of philosophy and I'm sure I'll learn a lot. Then Wednesday was time to go to London.

I met up with the current man in my life, but I'm sorry to say I've decided it's going nowhere, so I've decided the occasional dinner will be fine, but no more. Not sure he agrees.

Thursday my mother arrived back from Sicily. I managed to get her insurance company to pay for the tests for her memory (but sadly she couldn't remember going to the GP to ask for this to take place... oh dear... enough said!). Friday was fairly relaxed with an evening out at a wine bar and then Saturday morning saw the psychiatrist coming to my mother's house for an initial assessment.

It was a fascinating interview, which involved a lot of my mother forgetting things like she'd lost her way recently on a bus and told the psych in no uncertain terms, 'I NEVER take the bus', which turned out to be blatantly untrue according to my brother and our company secretary. But this just goes to add to the ever deteriorating picture of my mother's mental capacity.

Then, after the psych left, my mother asked me, 'who was that woman and what was she doing here?'. I have to say, even I've been impressed by my patience, however, it was a touch tried when my mother offered me a ticket to the English National Opera's dress rehearsal of Tosca. I went to the theatre to find my mother hadn't actually bought a ticket, but as luck would have it they'd just had a free one returned, so I got in free anyway. It was a hugely enjoyable experience too, but tinged with a touch of irritation that nothing my mother says can now be taken as true.

Yesterday I spent a wonderful evening with some of my lovely London friends, who sadly are going through the same experience with their parents and I didn't get to bed until the wee small hours.

Today I managed to get to Kings Cross in good time to get my train and as we were all sitting on it waiting for it to depart there was a message over the tannoy. The train was going nowhere. Nor was any other train on the East Coast line. A train further north had run into some cows on the line.

I had to make my way to Euston, get on a train to Manchester, then get on another to Leeds and then get on another to Berwick. And that is the short version of what proved to be a very long day. I was relieved to get home only 5 hours later than planned and all I could think was about those poor cows. I also met some very lovely people and my journey was made all the lighter because of them. Some clouds do have a silver lining.

It sure is good to be home though.