It’s another day (or at least part or it) of sitting with my mum, so I drive over to Stalham as soon as I have taken the dog for her morning walk. She’s much the same as she was yesterday, not giving any indication that she is aware of me being there. They do say that the sense of hearing is one of the last things to desert us when we leave this world, so I talk to her about her grandchildren, tell her that I love her, and battle with the lump in my throat.
At 2pm I have to take my leave of her and dash back to Southrepps. I’m having a trailer-load of logs delivered and have to be there to move them off the road and into our back garden. The logs arrive, and I load them into my wife’s pink wheelbarrow and take them into our back garden and stack them against the garden wall. By the time I finish, it’s getting dark and I’m extremely grateful to a couple of my neighbours who see me struggling and come to my aid – I thought that I would have sufficient energy to do it all myself, but I was wrong.
A hot bath and a shave make me feel (slightly) more human again.