Brush with Blighty

Brush with Blighty

Apparently, there are a number of rules that make a successful blog.  One of these is that there should be an new article  4 times a week minimum.  Whoops....

This time I do have an excuse.  The wilds of Cardiff do not have the internet.  Is that a puzzled look I see on your face? Do I hear cries of “but I thought you were in Sweden!” ?   It is all explained by the family emergency that saw my mother hot-footing it to one of my sisters in Amsterdam and me scrabbling to get to Cardiff to Dad-sit before she left. 

As I arrived at Heathrow, I wondered whether my heart would lift at the return to the UK and I would get too homesick to go back to Sweden.  Sorry chaps, but the place is dire.  Dreary, drab and dingy, the country looks as if it needs a good scrub. The people in the shops are gloomy and glum and the whole thing has lost politeness and manners.

I decided that I had gone completely native when the traffic in Cardiff seemed totally manic.  Previously it had been remarkable for its sparseness and general non-manicity when compared to London. Then I arrived at the flat and my father.  Argghhhhhh.

It is a dilemma writing some of this without appearing to dishonour my father, which I don’t really want to do.  However, it may, in some small way, help those who have difficult parents who get Alzheimer’s, so I will do my best. Theologically, I do not believe in Purgatory, however, I think that there may be a case for its presence on this plain of existence when the sheer tedium of the endless repetition of anxiety that is my father is experienced.  The holding pattern of questions (where’s mum, where’s she gone, why) took an average of 8 minutes to circle, apart from the night, when it was every 2 hours.  When there was some concentration required, like sleep, the questions would be even more anxious. The constant insistence on telephoning was difficult to head off without being bossy and prescriptive.  That was every 32 minutes, in case you think it would be ok to just let him phone. 

None of this was a problem to me really, though not being able to read or start anything much was slightly annoying,  because it is to be expected and there would be an end for me (poor, poor mother!).   The most difficult thing for me to deal with started at 2pm on Sunday – “but what about me? Why isn’t she looking after me?”  There was no comprehension that the world was not about him.  I do tend to find narcissistic egotism difficult to cope with at the best of times and when I was particularly weary, the only thing to do was to leave the room.  I had a headache for 5 days.

It really did make me ponder whether I managed my life to make everything about rather than care for others and about my insights into my behaviours.  I just hope that it isn’t too late.

 Ooooh, it was nice to come back.