The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - Again

My Easter week away has been one of mixed emotions.

First it was oh so nice to be with my dear old mum who never complains and, boy, does she have cause to. She is not very well at all at the moment. Apart from severe gastric pain which needs investigating (booked at the hospital for 13 May) and which causes her to almost double-up every time she eats something, she has severe arthritis in her spine and knees which means she can barely walk or stand. Despite all this, she almost apologises for her shadow and will thank and appreciate for any bit of kindness anyone shows her. We had a great time with me taking her out and about in the car to get a change of four walls from the ones she is imprisoned in most of the time. We had short walks, coffee sprees, car rides to watch gambolling lambs and blue sky, shopping trips, as well as me doing her garden, sorting out some space in a rather over-used junk room and fixing a few odd jobs.

Greg on the other hand was "supposed" to be in charge of things at home, enabling me to go away. Kay was with him at home, as she wanted to revise for her forthcoming exams, so all he needed to do was be the adult in charge, cook a few meals, be on standby to wipe her fevered brow and take her once or twice to meet up with friends when she felt like tunnelling an escape route. What happened was far from that. First he saw it as good practice for her to cook all the meals. Whilst I would agree that she should get a good run at independent living, now was not the time, as she really had a lot of study work to get through and he had nothing better to do than watch TV all day. But more to the point, as soon as my car had disappeared round the corner on its way to my mum's, Greg took up the whisky bottle and did not let off. I could hear it on the telephone in his slurred voice with its deliberate enunciation. I could almost smell it on his breath sixty miles away. Of course he denied it, too emphatically and too argumentatively. Kay on the other hand witnessed it at first hand and had to look after him rather than the other way round. By the end of the week, he was getting slurred much earlier in the day, forgetting things I had told him several times, even things I had written down in day-by-day notes to remind him. On one occasion Kay was distressed because she had to visit a friend some miles away and needed a lift to get home again late in the evening. He was incapable of collecting her and I was sixty miles away trying to sort out how to solve the problem. And to think he had even put on a concerned look when I was originally leaving for my mum's and ordered me to have a good break and build in some relaxation time. But then he had dashed any hope of that by giving me cause for concern at a long distance over his stupid behaviour.The moment my back was turned. One evening, he kept ringing up to continue an argument long after we had gone to bed and he knew the phone on my mother's bedside would disturb her sleep. He just didn't care or think. My entreaties for him to stop ringing us fell on deaf ears. By the end of the week, I had to leave my mum a day earlier than anticipated as he was again incapable of driving Kay and a friend home at midnight from a party. Just when I needed him to be there for me, while I was there for my mum.

He admits he is drinking again, but only "one or two a day and certainly nowhere near as much as before". He maintains he is in control and promises it will not get any worse. But he said that a year ago and a year before that and a year before that. I have heard it all before. The only person he is deceiving is himself. I can see right through it. In fact I discovered a half-bottle in his jacket pocket yesterday afternoon and it was empty by mid-evening. I just hope he holds off his imminent decline long enough for Kay to do these very important exams in June. The university course she wants requires superhuman grades. She cannot afford his drunken distractions.

After that Greg can please himself and go to hell.

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My 22-year-old niece had a bad car accident last week. She was driving back from university on Easter Saturday to spend the rest of the Easter weekend with her mother, when two miles from home she skidded on a patch of grease on the road, bashed into three trees, one after the other and ended up in the middle of the road. Fortunately no other cars were involved and she was able to get out of the car and walk away from it. But here's the rub..... the car was a complete write-off. A passing car stopped and called the police, an ambulance and my niece's mother, who was close enough to get there before the emergency services. My niece was taken to accident and emergency at the local hospital. Apart from cuts and emerging bruises she was allowed home soon after, although it now seems she has belated concussion. There is some suggestion the car may have somersaulted as there were dents on the car roof and my niece cannot recall some of what happened. Her car was full of stuff she was returning home after three years away and was spewed all over the roadside and some of it even landed up in the trees. Most irritating of all, her laptop was thrown into undergrowth and badly damaged, so that the final draft of her dissertation for her university degree may have to be retyped and will miss the deadline she was set.

The terrifying thought of it made me drive like a granny on the way to my mother - much to the annoyance of the car behind me!