We currently have carers on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.   These ‘sits’  are an opportunity for me to have some ‘me time’: often referred to as respite.  Unfortunately, rather than take time for myself today I sent today’s carer off shopping.

One of our carers has been a regular for a year or so now.  She is like a daughter to us and Maureen generally enjoys her company.  Unfortunately, today she turned up with a lot on her mind and discharged her worries without drawing breath.  The current spate of terrorist attacks had created chaos with her wedding plans.  Some guest had pulled out of the trip to a sunny island and unpleasantness had followed.  It soon became clear that our ‘daughter’ was so distressed that she was unfit to carry out her role.  Role reversal was taking place as we tried to support her, rather than the other way round.  I decided to take action and sent her off on a shopping mission with advice to take time out.

Maureen has always been a listener; supporting lots of people throughout her life.  She soon went into her default mode giving our adopted daughter lots of advice and TLC.  However, I anticipated that a couple of hours of this ‘soap opera’ would exhaust her to no avail.  Sending her off meant that we could be a normal married couple and eat breakfast together without further unnecessary complications in our lives. We never watch ‘Soaps. and we certainly don’t need live episodes in our own home on a Monday morning.

The carer returned with all the items on our list.  We bade her farewell hoping that her two weeks abroad would go according to plan and she would return to us afterwards as a happily married woman.