Mum in good form

When I arrived at the nursing home this morning an hour earlier than usual I found mum asleep in her room in the company of F, whose room is a short distance away from mum's room, and who was also asleep. We had a short chat and I sat down on the only unoccupied seat, which was on mum's walker. F was sitting in mum's orange recliner chair and mum was sitting in the beige vinyl chair. Not long after I arrived a staff member came into the room and collected F, taking her back to her room. I said that I wanted to take mum out to the park.

Mum was already wearing her jacket when I arrived - a sign of the waning summer, although in the outside air it is still quite humid - so we only had to get her cap - and one was handily already sitting in the walker's basket - and her sunglasses, to complete the going-out ensemble.

We sat on the second bench at the park and watched the dogs. Because it was a Saturday morning there were a lot of dogs in the park, trotting round the perimeter of the park with their owners. Mum said hello to a few of the dogs and got some smiles from some of the owners. We sat there for a good 45 minutes and I made a video. We also sang a song - Stormy Weather - and were a bit silly with the lyrics, singing nonsense words instead of the real words of the song. Mum was in good form which was great to see.

After we got back inside the nursing home we heard the sound of singing coming from the downstairs dining room so we headed in that direction and found they were having a concert put on by a Korean Presbyterian church, probably one from the local area. After helping mum to sit down on her walker I asked one of the staffers there if they could take mum back upstairs when the concert was finished, so she could have lunch. Then I left.

I wanted to leave in time to avoid the traffic that congregates around the exit from the Western Distributor at the Fish Market. If you leave it too late the traffic is so bad you can easily wait for up to 15 minutes just to get off the motorway. But in my case I drove straight off on the last bit of the green light, without waiting at all. It was better timing. When I got home I ate the pork roll I had bought in Epping on the way back from the nursing home. Then I put on the laundry to wash, and had a nap.