Took Mr H down to Yoakley House for his first visit to see Mum in her new home. He was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was there. More importantly, Mum seems to be about as content as we could hope for – mostly down to the nice food and the friendly staff. Here she is, supping on her post-lunch coffee (the last time I went down)…
Today we whisked her out in the glorious sunshine – but bloody brisk Kent wind – down to a little place called BeBeached on the Margate Arm. First time I've ever been to Margate, seen the beach, found the 'arm' and ditto for H. Very sweet little place for lunch with a cracking view over the beach, looking pretty good in the sunshine.
As I was wittering away to Mum however, we walked past the big white building at the edge of the beach and I said 'that seems to be the Turner (Art) Collection' and she said, 'oh yes, I know, I've been there'. Who knew???? She does surprise me sometimes.
Anyway – a successful trip down, took lots of her paintings and decorative bits, plus a new TV as she needs one that will go on the wall in her new room. Plus the many photo albums she has stashed in her huge Norwegian painted trunk. Slightly sad that I showed her a few photos – Rick in the bath as a baby, Cathy's wedding, some old black and whites of her and Dad – and she appeared to engage with them, then I pointed at one and just asked her 'who's that?'. She was obviously totally unable to actually see any of them, as she hazarded a guess of 'is it me?'. Sadly the photo was a close up of her old cat, Topsy, so she wasn't even close…. Hey ho, hey?
Back again down there this Thursday as I'm covering for Rick while he is on a medical mission (yep) in Kenya for 2 weeks. Then he takes over again as main carer/visitor and H and I are going to start our new routine of coming twice a month. Me twice, him once. We'll see how it goes and make sure Mum feels loved enough, as that is the whole point of it all. x