Visiting mum the day after a tooth extraction

This is mum in the park yesterday. I was going to go up to visit her at the nursing home on Wednesday but on that day I had to go to the dentist, and they took out a tooth. It was a molar that was a wisdom tooth that had no upper partner, so it wasn't doing much and was hard to clean. The dentist had advised me on an earlier occasion that it was her opinion that the tooth should be removed. So when it became infected a few days ago I had to make an appointment.

The removal was extremely painful and the pain that arose once the anaesthetic had worn off on Wednesday afternoon and evening was tremendous. The dentist had asked me not to drink on the first day after the extraction, so I had no recourse to alcohol to dull the pain. I was so exhausted on Wednesday night that I went to bed at 7.30pm and slept fitfully through the night until I finally got out of bed on Thursday morning at 9.30am. By this time the pain had significantly subsided. I decided to go up to see mum and I put on the new leather shoes that I had bought on Tuesday.

Mum was asleep on her bed with no socks on when I arrived and I got her to put some on because I was planning to take advantage of the fine weather and take her out to the park. I went over to the table by the window and dialled up my brother but he was unable to speak for very long due to the emergence of a conflicting priority at his end. He had been called to eat dinner. Mum and I rang off just before the tea cart appeared, so we had a cup of coffee before heading out into the sunshine.

Outside we went up to the corner and crossed the street, walked past the putrefying rabbit (I don't know why the council haven't picked up this scrap of mortality yet, it has been there for weeks and weeks), and headed to the second bench. A number of other elderly people from the nursing home were out walking with two of the staff; they made their base a bit further down, toward the sports pavilion.

As we were sitting there on the bench a woman and a younger man came up with a male dog that looked like a greyhound, although it was slightly smaller. The woman said it was a greyhound-whippet cross. The woman and the man had been training the dog to obey orders until they decided to take a circuit of the park. They started talking to us as they came by where we were sitting. The woman had a parka held over her head "because of the sun", she said. We discussed nursing homes, and the woman said that her father had been in a nursing home before he had passed away. Her mother, who was some years younger than her father had been, was soon to be considering whether to go into care. I recommended she try the nursing home mum lives in, because of the excellent service they provide.

The woman left after a while and mum and I continued to sit in the sun until it became time to think about lunch. We got up from the bench and joined the others from the nursing home, who were also making their way back inside, as they walked down the footpath. Back inside, I placed mum at a table in the dining room then took her outside gear back to her room and put it away. Then I said goodbye to her and left. On the way down toward the motorway I stopped off and bought some petrol and a sandwich and drink. I ate my lunch in the car while driving.