Well we made it through day 1. I’m up at 0730 to take the dogs out, and I leave Mum to sleep until gone 9am. The Air BNB I have booked is not available until 3pm, but I’m expecting the boys to arrive around lunchtime so that we can have a nice lunch in the pub next door to where we’re going to be staying.

Needless to say, Mum is a little jaded today and has no energy. She has made it from bedroom to sitting room so I put the telly on. It’s only pictures to her, she can’t make out what the devil anyone is saying. I put the words on (subtitles), but she isn’t interested. I make her some breakfast and remind her that she would feel much worse if I’d given in to her ranting and let her have another drink. Not wishing to enter in to a discussion of her bad behaviour, she finds something of interest on the carpet and picks it up.

A little while later, she toddles off and reappears with some things she has brought with her.

1. A silk scarf for me (it’s actually quite nice)
2. 3 shoe bags, 1 each for the boys. The kind that posh shoes come in, inside the box. She thinks the boys might find them useful. I’m not even sure their humoungous size 11 trainers will even both fit in a bag, but I thank her anyway. I remind her that we are leaving today to go to the Air BNB so let’s not get everything out of the case, as it will all have to go back in.
3. Some extra strong mints, and do I want one?
4. A selection of the birthday cards which she was sent this year. I suggest we go through them at the BNB when we have more time, but she insists on showing me a few anyway. She loves her cards, and when re-reading, always gives the impression that it’s actually the first time she’s read that card. I guess that’s the dodgy memory again.

I send her back into the bedroom to go repack, but when I look in on her 20 minutes later I find she has totally unpacked everything and it’s carnage but she’s happy.

We potter around until 11am and I tell her I’m all ready, probably best she goes and gets dressed now so we can be off to meet the boys at 12pm. This leaves her with no choice but to tell me that she has had a “malfunction”. No doubt something to do with 4 pints the night before, although once again, she refuses to accept responsibility. She blames the manufacturer of the stoma bag, clearly this is a dodgy batch. I won’t go into the details, but it’s a clean up operation which I wouldn’t want to do again in a hurry and I’m frankly relieved when the boys check in with me and tell me they’re running late and only just leaving Colchester.

2 hours , 2 showers and 2 loads of laundry later, we’re ready for the off, Mum still feeling less than 100%. It’s my birthday, the sun is shining and I put the top down on Mimi the mini to drive the short distance to the Air BNB. I currently live just outside the Isle of Thanet, and the whole of this section of the Kent coast is fantastic, from Whitstable in the North, round through Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate, Sandwich Bay, Deal, Walmer, Kingsdown (where we are staying), St. Margarets until you reach the landscape changes with the town and port of Dover. Our angels are smiling on us and when we rock up to the Air BNB slightly early, the cleaners have left so we are able to get in and unpack before the boys arrive.

We’re sitting having a cup of tea when I offer to brush Mum’s hair, drying now after her impromptu shower. She says yes please, but be careful of her bump. I know nothing about a bump, but on parting her hair discover a nasty gash about 2 inches long which is healing nicely.

Mum’s account of receiving the injury is that she was assaulted in Bradford about 2 weeks ago, that she was on a pedestrian bit and somebody threw something at her which hit her on the head. Subsequent questions just leave more unanswered. She’s sure someone threw a missile, yet there was no one around, nor was there anything on the ground when she looked to see what had hit her. She didn’t report it to the police, and claimed to have been “shopping”. She didn’t go to a & e, because we all know how long that takes and she could have caught covid, so she just went home and went to bed. Only in the morning when her head was stuck to the pillow did she realise that it had been bleeding and was probably more significant than she first thought.

Her account grows more and more sketchy with questioning, so I file it under “Arthur C Clarke” and tell her I hope it doesn’t happen again. Later, when she shows the boys they are equally shocked, and more questions flow, leaving us all feeling very uneasy, but thankful that it wasn’t any worse. Frankly, my gut tells me that it was much more likely that she took a tumble, but she either doesn’t want to admit this, or doesn’t actually remember and has filled in the gaps herself, badly, like an apprentice plasterer on his first day at work.

Anyway, the boys arrive, she tries to remember all their names and assign the correct name to the correct grandchild, and as usual gets Alex & Toby mixed up.

As soon as they’ve arrived, she wants to show them her birthday cards, and of course bestow on them the gift of a shoe bag each. In one of her birthday cards, one of my lovely friends (thank you Trace Padgett) has included a £10 gift card to Wetherspoons – one of Mum’s favourite haunts in Bradford. We had discovered in the pub the night before that ‘Spoons in Ramsgate is the largest in Europe – if not the world – and I remember that quiz night is on Wednesday night. That’s tomorrow night sorted then – it’s only 25 minutes away, we all bloody love a pub quiz and Mum gets to spend her voucher. We read her cards with her and I’m beginning to wonder whose birthday it actually is, but I’m happy to share it with her. Massive thanks again to everyone who has sent her a card/cards over the last couple of years – it really has made her happy.

It’s a beautifully sunny day and we all enjoy a relaxing couple of hours before Oli – now a very talented chef – starts cooking dinner. Jackie, my friend (present at the scan which revealed two embryo’s instead of one 22 years ago) pops over for supper and we all have a lovely time. Mum is not drinking, and her hangover seems to spoil her day. I try not to let it spoil mine, actually thankful that I don’t have to have a row with her about another drink on my birthday. I open my presents, eat some lovely food, laugh with my gorgeous boys and sleep in a lovely bed someone else has made. It’s all rather special.