SNAP, CRACKLE... (POP?)

Let me set the scene.

I'm currently living in a building site. The bathroom has been stripped bare so that whilst there is still a toilet, there is no bath, shower or even washbasin. Meanwhile the bedroom is being plastered and all of our clobber which has been removed from those two rooms is currently clogging up the landing, the kitchen, the living room and the attic room, and you have to push your way past the upended mattress to get through the landing to get to the doorway leading up to the crowded attic room where a fold out sofa bed is serving for our sleeping facilities, so that we too are currently cluttering the attic room overnight with our dozing forms.

The dust is everywhere and, during another unexpected hot spell of weather, I can just about wash my face and brush my teeth in the kitchen sink, and doing that and indeed dealing with any other calls of nature involves pushing your way through the landing and down two flights of narrow rickety stairs in the darkness whilst trying to find something to slip over your feet to protect them from the unseen bits and pieces lying there waiting to wound them. My shins are already more than intimately acquainted with the new toilet bowl which currently resides in the kitchen awaiting its new life.

I have not been sleeping well, and, despite actually being "on holiday" for a week, I feel utterly exhausted, not least because it's just so much simpler to get out of the builders' way during the day and leave them to their mayhem whilst we sit in cafes and other eateries, or trudge the streets buying more of the kind of tat that we really don't need to fill the house with and, since a massive bill is looming, probably cant afford anyway.

Meanwhile, I have to resume my professional life next week and, because the office was burgled last weekend and can no longer be considered "secure" it looks as if somehow I'm going to have to find some way to work from home amidst the ongoing chaos and dust and, of course, occasional shut downs of the power supply.

So much you may have already known... and this is currently what is passing for "fun" in my supposedly stress-free lifestyle.

This means that, when I'm sitting sweating in a car park far away from home at the end of a long, long day which started long before the builders arrived unexpectedly early, and waiting for the beloved to emerge from her latest bout with her osteopath, having just had another telephone conversation with my manager about the insanity of people leaving expensive deliveries in a corridor in a still vulnerable building, and how I'm going to resume my duties under the circumstances, and knowing that the computer equipment currently in my car boot is essentially uninsured, what I really, really didn't need was a telephone call from my sister informing me that, after three whole days in her own home, my mother has called the paramedics again and they are sending for an ambulance to take her to the hospital.

Update 1 - Dateline August 23rd, 5.00am.

I finally arrived home at about 7.45pm having briefly called in at mum's flat where she was sitting and being attended to by a paramedic whilst they waited for the ambulance to arrive. Mum looked a lot better than I had expected, to be honest, and suggesting that she might be able to return to the care home despite that not really being what it's for. After this, I headed home and waited for the call after somehow getting the massive computer box into my house and through the obstacle course in such as way that implied that taking it daily to and from the office next week as I had planned to might not actually be the most practical solution after all.

A long telephone conversation with my sister did not help my mood, with regards to my mother's long-term situation, although I suspect the woman herself might have found it to be largely uncomplimentary, given that we've come to the conclusion that much of her current status comes from laziness and a desire not to do things for herself.

The overnight message telling me that the hospital sent her home at 11.00pm might just imply that they agree...

Update 2 - Dateline August 23rd, 7.30pm.

Despite the fact that I have been out of the house since 8 o'clock this morning, it is somehow all my fault that I have failed to hear any of the messages left after 8.34am telling the sad and pathetic story of (Ta-dah!) my mother being readmitted into hospital. I rang the ward at 7.30pm, after trawling through the abusive messages but, because of patient confidentiality, they are unable to even tell me why she has been readmitted...

So it begins again...