I began writing this blog at 10.30 last night to start looking back on my away day in Coventry.  It had been a tiring day and I haven’t really pleased  my mum or my wife.

My journey began at 7.10am yesterday morning, and I returned home at 9.15pm.  It’s a round trip of 230 miles from Cleethorpes to Coventry and I travelled by travelled by coach, and local bus.  We made good time, and I was sitting beside mum in her Care Home by 11.40 am.

Her repetitive questioning about: ‘had I come in the car’ was a constant theme of the hour we spent together.  I soon gathered that she was angling to be taken out for a ride in the surrounding countryside.  My sisters report that mum often switches off, and goes to sleep when a short drive is not on the cards.

My idea of using music went well, and we sang along to some Festive tunes from my phone.  Mum tapped her feet and really enjoyed our little sing along.  She was reluctant to move from ‘her chair’ and that caused upset for one resident that a ‘man was in the house’.

As short as my visit was it gave mum a break from watching random TV that provides a meaningless backdrop to her life.  Staff seemed to be busy meeting the individual needs of residents, and gazing at the screen seemed to be the option for mum: little surprise she was dozing when I arrived.

I had a lovely lunch with several family members at a local pub.  Service was slow and that meant I didn’t manage to get to see my brother as his Nursing Home is the other side of the city.

I was not well received on my return home.  Maureen was confused by the events of the day, and had no recollection that her son has been here.  The cold shoulder was applied in a blatant fashion, and Maureen was reluctant to go to bed insisting on sleeping on the sofa.  I managed to persuade her upstairs at 11.30 pm but she didn’t want me in the same bed and I took my place in the Dog House – the spare bedroom.  I managed to join her in the marital bed  early in the morning when I could hear her moving next door, and I feigned a return from a visit to the bathroom.

It is fully understandable that I am in the Dog House.  My mum loves to go for a ride in the car: I didn’t take her.  Maureen had been left with strangers all day: I had deserted her and her normal routines had been disrupted.  What else can I expect when dementia means that my mum and wife now focus exclusively on their own needs?