Wednesday 4th October 2017

Here I am. Still. But today is the day of the operation, so I will stay and wait for news from Papworth on how things have gone, meaning lots more time to clean and throw things out. Lovely.

In a break with tradition, I have toast for breakfast, using the last of the crusty bread. I can still smell stale tobacco in the house, but when I open the door to the spare room where I have not sprayed Fabreeze, it hits you like a piano falling out of a skyscraper. Yuk indeed.

Sheila told me of another cupboard full of food, at ground level beside the sink, it s where Mum kept her baking stuff. And soy sauce, and boulion cubes and so on. All are either out of date, including glace cherries so old they were an odd shade of grey. Instead of going in the bin, I begin to put them in black sacks, taking them to the tip later.

In about an hour, flour, ground nuts and sugar so old it had turned into white concrete, all went into a bad and into the back of the car. I know this isn’t exciting, but its what I did.

Then there is the living room, the area of stuff around the chair in which mum spends 23 hours plus a day. It all gets put in more sacks and put on the spare bed to sort out. Finally, there is the shelf at the front of the kitchen which is three feet deep in plastic containers, unused kitchen gadgets and cake tins. What can be thrown out was, and the rest in sacks and on the spare bed. Gadgets get put into a now empty cupboard.

Phew.

And then there was the waiting. Waiting for a call from Papworth that she is out of danger and out of theatre. I watch some crap daytime TV, as you do, and get sucked in by Wheeler Dealers before turning my attention to blogging.

I get a call from Jools at six asking if there was news, then an old friend, Pat, calls asking the same. In time she came round to spill the beans on things mum had failed to mention; like Pat does not go round because of the smoking, and Mum begged Pat to buy her a new washing machine earlier this year. I have no idea if this is true, but then have no reasons to doubt it.

At quarter to eight I get the call, just after I had eaten dinner; she was out of theatre, the operation took longer than expected, and they were going to keep her sedated until the morning. I did again at ten, and there was no real change, other than she was not worse, which is good.

I watch more TV, and have a bear. As you do, and also deal with yet more calls until I am so tired I go to bed at half ten, and as I lay awake just nodding off, I could hear the sound of working diesel engines, as two 37s haul one of the last trains to Norwich. Growwwwl.