It was…….

..the best of times, it was the worst of times.  Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration but it was certainly an up and down weekend.

The worst bits were not nice at all.  I got a nasty email.  My mother threw a major wobbly. I got intimidated on the road.  I suppose I should have seen the wobbly in the distance because she has done it every Miniatura  to stop me going to the show, except the one I missed when I broke my arm and decided I couldn’t do the show, which delighted her considerably.  The email was the evening, the wobbly was the Friday morning when I was trying to finish getting ready.  The phone calls came every half hour.  We had the whole nine yards; carers ejected from the house, hysterical crying, threats to phone the police, pleadings for me to go and settle her, arrival of senior office staff, locking the staff out and leaving the keys in, refusal to speak on the phone, tears, scenes, the doctor, the whole shebang.  I insisted throughout that I was not going to go because I know if I had given in I would not be able to do anything ever again.  You cannot believe how upsetting it is to hear your mother screaming ‘get out! get out of my house!  I am phoning the police now! Get out!’  and so on.  And, naturally the office staff assuring me I don’t need to go and hoping I will.  But I stuck to my guns and in the end the doctor produced a sedative to be administered for a few days.

I really think this has little to do with dementia, although the manifestation sounds demented.  It is more to do with jealousy and attention seeking.

So I set off to set up, still shaking but amazingly hadn’t forgotten anything.  I managed the drive OK, despite the fact that the OT disabled my driving skills some years ago, so that I would only be able to drive him to the pub.  I am slowly getting my confidence back, only to lose it all in a rush on Saturday evening returning from the show.

The motorcyclist appeared from behind me in a rush and seemed to think I’d cut him up going round the roundabout, even though I was indicating well in advance of the manoeuvre.  He drove beside me revving his engine for a couple of miles and at the lights banged on the car window.  I thought he was going to put his fist through the window and hit me, I’m sure that’s what he wanted me to think.  I thought he was going to follow me home but he eventually gave up and roared off into the distance.

That was the evening I got the nasty email.  The following day I had a letter published in the Sunday Times, to which I had written when they invited comments about the cost of care for families with demented members.  Quite a few other readers had written in with their points of view.  The fact that they are writing and the Sunday Times is publishing the letters is hopeful, maybe one day people with demented relatives won’t have to glean though the writings of people like me to get information or support.

But the show, as always was wonderful, uplifting, cheering and marvellous.  It started at setting up when we were queuing in the car park waiting to be summoned to go into the hall.  There is a system as organised as it is possible to be.  The Hopwoods have never believed in leaving anything to chance, postal instructions arrive in plenty of time and the halls and car park queues are well provided with highly visible staff with walkie-talkies; almost every minute from your arrival on site to your arrival in the hall near your stand is planned with precision.  In the car park we got out of our cars and stood for a chat in glorious sunshine.  I talked to Phil from Glasscraft, mainly about famous people born in South Shields.  We could think of Sarah Millican, Ridley Scott and  Eric Idle.  I wasn’t born there, I lived there from the age of three until I left home.  Phil lives on the north side of the river.  And we talked of holidays and miniatures and shows and sunshine and pleasantly filled in twenty minutes until the queue was waved on.  When I got in the car feeling happy, I realised it was the first conversation for months when I hadn’t been speaking to someone aggressive or dominating, or insane, or coping with it, or wanting a lot of money from me, or the interest on it.

The show was lovely, the packing up was lengthy but the leaving of the site was a nightmare.  I had to drive through a wedding show which was quitting the site with no organisation of any sort.  People pushing racks of wedding dresses were running across a traffic roundabout with lorries driving at them from four directions while vans swerved to get into parking places and brides in four-inch heels tottered though all of it.  I put my hazard lights on and proceeded at three miles an hour until I was clear of it all.

Monday was a lost day, though the phone call to my mother was fairly low key, as the sedatives have had a chance to be effective.  Today to the dentist for major work on a back tooth, part of which had crumbled away the week before the show, so the rest of today has been a bit lost, or drowned in rain that got the OT’s golf match cancelled and saw the cats’ bowls  washing away in a flood coming up through the floor.

So, what next in the saga of highs and lows?  Well, the S&H informs the OT by Facebook, his phone having packed in, that his lovely wife has been in hospital and in labour since midnight.

Stay tuned, it’s all occurring round here!

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JaneLaverick.boring it aint.