THE LONG AND TIRING WAIT

I have watched the TV news, looked at papers on line and still can't find anything about the doctors going back to work. On Monday I'll have to call and at least get some idea how long the wait for the op will be. It's very much a 'Catch 22'. Mum has to move to keep the joints from locking but the longer she goes without anti-inflammatories, the harder it is for her to walk which means more intensive physio after the op. We'll forget the brain, that's just not functioning on four cylinders at all.

She tried to cook tea last night, steak and kidney pie but nearly blew up the house trying to light the gas. This was at 5 o'clock which is the limit of her endurance. It took me 5 minutes to make dumplings, throw them in the pot with the S&K so tea was ready in 20 minutes. I would say it was a success when my sister even ate a bowl of it. The brickouthouse hid the remaining dumplings and ate them with cheese sauce (which sounds revolting) when he came back from work. I haven't made dumplings in years so I was pleased I hadn't lost the touch and it was a recipe given to me by an old lady when I started cooking for my father. My sister remembers whenever I was cooking them, he would roar the minute she appeared, 'Don't lift the bloody lid',
when usually that's exactly what she'd just done. She'd hide until he did the honours and pronounced them 'perfect'.

I have found the bed in the sewing room. Everything is stacked on its shelf and the boxes are labelled and stacked. The sewing machine is out of the lounge and tucked in the corner as is the overlocker. The only thing left in the lounge is her work table and embroidery box so she can pick up where she left off. I don't think there is a cardboard box any where that hasn't been checked even finding one that had fallen behind the couch. That went home with me as it contained pale pink frosted glass baubles I'd given her for Christmas at least four years ago, even I had forgotten them. Only one more thing to attend to and that is the window seat in the bedroom. It is jam packed with ribbons, all colours and sizes and unbelievably jumbled. When I go through that she can sit in bed and tell me what to do which I will ignore. I can do a really good ignore these days.

Sometimes it was a walk down memory lane. I found dress patterns in a bottom drawer which she said to throw away but my interest in fashion wouldn't let me do that. Besides, there was my wedding dress which looked way better on Jean Shrimpton than it did on me. The first dress I made at school which the old bat in charge gave me 5 marks out of 100 for. So it was 4 months late, we were poor and it took that long to pay off the lay-by. She didn't think a black dress was appropriate for my age and especially not fine wool. I wore that dress until it literally fell to pieces. It also taught me to read a pattern before I bought it, the damn thing was cut all in one and joined with gussets under the arms. I have never made anything with a gusset since.

Mum appreciated the fact that I went through everything before it was thrown out. Eight boxes of bits and bobs went to two friends. I found my father's opal ended ball point pen which disappeared years ago and a letter written to him, by Mum, on a visit to Sydney in 1957. In fact, I surprised at how many little pieces of his have surfaced, almost as though he saying, 'I'm still here for you'. Although he probably wouldn't have cared for the swearing I did when I caught her putting them in a plastic bag ready to go into a little box. I allowed her the box and ditched the bag. We had enough trouble looking for the soap the other day, found inside a little bag, inside a big bag.

Tomorrow is going to be a terrible day. Rain, hail, sleet and freezing wind. It's craft market day and I will be home in bed. Luvverly.