Today I finally had my hair cut and styled. The blonde, agreeable-looking woman is called Kate and she charges less than my last stylist. There are no tip boxes so that saved another five pounds. I am also very pleased with the cut she gave me. Before going out I changed the bed linen and did three lots of washing. I have started to pack the suitcase and my overnight bag. I shall have to charge both of my mobile phones before I leave. Tomorrow I have the charity shop in the morning and we must visit Dan's aged father-in-law in the afternoon. The only appointment on Thursday is to have my eyebrows waxed. The rest of the day will be spent ironing, packing and cleaning. We shall go to Wetherspoon's for supper. The Red Lion is a pleasant old coaching inn and is the last place I had a meal with my daughter.
I visited the nursing home today. There was a staff meeting in progress. I had to go to the desk of the sour-faced receptionist to find a pen in order to sign myself in. I took jam doughnuts and chocolate and made tea as usual. The old man was awake; I sat for a while outside because his door was closed and I thought the staff were changing him. Then I knocked and went in. He ate a little jam doughnut and complained that his tea had no sugar. I had put a little sugar in but went to get more. He drank a little tea but kept asking me to take the cup away; I finally did and put it on the tray. He would not stop asking me to remove the cup that was leaking into his bed. I am usually patient but today I could not cope with it. I shouted at him. This was a shameful thing to do and I knew it, but it was more than I could bear. I am tired of this; I am tired of visiting him. I am tired of doing battle with the nursing home management about the shoddy workmanship of the lazy handyman. I am tired of senile dementia and incontinence. My son is lucky that he has abandoned his parents. He will not have to look after us when we are old and demented. He will get nothing when we die unless we both die while we own the French flat.
When we turn seventy in June holiday insurance will become substantially more expensive. I suppose that this is understandable. We shall also be leaving the European Union. Our Denplan membership covers our teeth. I know that such insurance is vital. We are both fit and healthy but old age is encroaching. Next year we shall have our last expensive holiday when we celebrate our golden wedding anniversary. These holidays have been every five years since 1993, when we went on the Orient Express for our silver wedding. I wonder if we shall see our diamond anniversary; we shall be eighty-one if so. I have been married longer than any of my three older brothers. The middle one has been married forty years to his second wife. The eldest one had a silver wedding anniversary with his first wife; the next year they were divorced and he finally married the woman with whom he had been living part of the time since 1972. The youngest one's longest marriage was from 1989 until 2006, although it was an on-and-off marriage the last three years. Two of husband's siblings, despite being brought up as Roman Catholics, have also been divorced. The eldest of the three sisters separated from her husband after twenty years. The youngest of the three boys has been divorced twice. I wonder what my pious, narrow-minded mother-in-law would have had to say about that. The second of the girls has been married nearly twenty-eight years. She could not be married in church because the man she married had been divorced twice. However, her husband was welcomed because she was a single mother. The second boy, Kevin, died just before his seventeenth wedding anniversary. He drank a solvent containing cyanide. He had a degree in biochemistry, although it took him six years to get it.
I am tired; time for bed.
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