Well, it is now a different year altogether and I am still in Lockdownton Abbey. Having inadequately cared for my father (See The Ancient of Days) until he finally shuffled his mortal coil off towards the end of 2019, I stayed with mum for several weeks to help her through the aftermath and then tentatively made my way back home, returning every day to help her get up, dressed, eat and go to various appointments. However, Lockdown loomed and it was obvious that I would have to return to provide full-time live-in inadequate care. It has been a very long year to say the least. I have no idea how long exactly, since time has become a completely relative concept in The Bungalow.
The odd thing is that, despite it making no difference at all to mum what day or time of day it actually is, she unfortunately for me, has the obsessiveness of a terrier when trying to prise the time out of the available clues. She wears a Speaking Watch, which at the drop of a hat or indeed walking stick will be pressed and interrogated for horological accuracy. The watch is extremely loud, and, once pressed into action will continue to proclaim every aspect of the fourth dimension at a level that can drown out passing blue light ambulances and would probably reduce Brian Blessed into a mute goldfish should he happen to be passing. The maternal preoccupation with all things chronic is by no means a new trait, it has however, become amplified (pun absolutely intended) over the years. In fact, in a serendipitous twist of fate, this obsession has eclipsed the previous almost constant worry regarding The Bins, which colour Bin was to go out on which Day, which Neighbour had or hadn't put their Bin out, taken their Bin in, what time the Bin Men came that morning, have the right things gone into the correct Bin etc... On more than several occasions in the past I had been summoned by urgent telephone calls back from my house to come and put the right Bin out for the morning. On one bone chilling occasion, I accidently mused aloud that our Bin didn't appear to have been put back at all by the Bin Men and was in fact "Missing". A two hour search later and thankfully BinGate was resolved but I will live in fear of mentioning anything to do with Bins again in case the trauma comes back to trigger us all into total psychotic meltdown.
Obviously neither of these preoccupations, the time or the waste receptacles, can possibly compete with the overriding default concern, indeed everything pales into insignificance when one considers the matter of "Where is The Cat? " This is paramount. It is the Magnetic North of mum's declining compass and therefore must also be mine. In actual fact, while my late father was, I had been assured by the Nurse who came to assess him after a fall, "dying" and would probably be gone in a week, maybe two, (this is what prompted me to spend another two years of my life embedded back in my parents' house - he actually took his own sweet time about it, you would think he had all the time in the world in fact) another Cat had inveigled it's furry bodied self into the household and so "Where is the Cat?!?" had morphed into "Where are my Animals?"
Two cats? I hear you say? Oh if only that were remotely true for my incrementally mentally challenged progenitress, we have my niece in our lockdown bubble who occasionally comes over with her rescued tongue hanging out ostentibile French Bulldog, this creature is now part of the Animal Equation, where are the animals? is now totally inclusive of every animal that has ever been "my animal" alongwith many animals that were never even known to Gerald Durrall let alone our immediate family. Much of my day and hideously my night, is spent either searching for existing animals or trying to persuade mum that we don't have those particular creatures anymore, if ever.
I have had three children, all of whom I love (to the moon and back BBZ) so, I merely state this to emphasise that I am no stranger to sleep deprivation. However, these last years, it has been years, even though I now have no concept of time anymore, Sleep has become an elusive ghost, a tantilising thought of what might have been, what might still be, but, sadly in my case, an unattainable goal, totally unachievable for more than an hour or so, in sleep what dreams may come? I have no idea any more, I literally trudge through what I am reliably told, via the Speaking Watch, are hours. My mother will invariably come into my "sleeping pod" several times a night looking for the "animals" wondering where I am, Asking whether it is tomorrow yet? I am doing this. I am not complaining, not moaning, just sometimes, having to write this and drink a bottle of wine. Which is what I am doing now. Pip Pip. What Larks.
