Sunday a planned day off and lazy morning for me, around 11.30pm I was settling down with a coffee and some crochet, when my telephone rang. It was Mum, and I could tell by her voice everything was not right. Dad has been needing attention all morning, and most of the night, asking questions almost constantly.
Is it time to get up yet? what are we doing? have we got enough petrol? Can we get up yet? All this before the sun is up.
After breakfast the questions keep coming. Mum is unable to leave Dad for long enough to even have a shower.
"Can I do the jigsaw"
"Yes, I'll put it on the table for you"
"Can you help with the jigsaw?"
"No, I'm clearing up the breakfast things."
"'Can I help?"
"Put the milk and marmalade in the fridge."
"What's a fridge?"
Mum has hardly slept, she has had two hip operations, has sciatica which gives her lots of pain. then having to try and stay calm with the barrage of questions is difficult to say the least. This is why I get the telephone call, Mum says she is the nasty one, getting grumpy with Dad. I am thinking I am not sure I could do what she does. I locked my cat out of the bedroom for purring in my ear, that's nothing compared to what Mum is dealing with. Dad is lovely and wants to help, but just can't anymore.

I go over, Dad says "hello, we weren't expecting you today".
" I know Dad, but I want some conkers and there is a conker tree down the road, get your shoes on we are going out"

I don't give him time to think about it, shoes on, a bit of difficultly with the coat, we miss the arm holes a couple of times. Questions keep coming.
"Where are we going?"
"to get conkers, do you know what to do with conkers. "
"Make holes in them and do this", He mimes the conker hitting game,
"then we need to get milk from the shop so I need a bag."
"is it far?"
"no, lets get out the door" We get out the house and down the road.
"where are the conkers"
"Just past the shop Dad, Where my sister and I use to catch the bus to go to school, when we lived at armature cottage."
Do you remember living there! That was a long time ago" then just to confuse me "have we got enough petrol?"
"We don't need petrol Dad, we are walking"
"but where do we get petrol"
"its Sunday Dad we don't need petrol"
He seems to like picking up conkers, we collect about 10, go to the shop. At home I can her Mum on the phone to an old school friend
"I am hiding upstairs"
I can distract Dad a bit by making holes in some conkers, we have a quick game, then lay the fire. By this time we are having a cuppa and Mum comes and joins us. She looks a lot better.

After lunch Dad reads all of the milk bottle label, he talks about milk coming from cows. We then sing "A cow jumps over the moon" Dad knows all the words, I think this is a good time to go home, I still need to finish my crochet gingerbread man!