I\u2019m a carer for my elderly parents. On Thursday, I got up and told my 90-year old dad that I wasn\u2019t doing anymore lessons so I didn\u2019t have to come into contact with people, and the first thing he says is: \u2018can you take me to Wickes, then?\u2019<\/p>\n
I said \u2018what? No, I\u2019m not\u2019, and he almost fell out with me. He sulked for a while, and wouldn\u2019t tell me what he wanted.<\/p>\n
I said \u2018dad, whatever it is I can order it online, then we won\u2019t have to go out\u2019. He still wouldn\u2019t tell me.<\/p>\n
Fast forward two days, and I again started trying to explain to him what \u2018social distancing\u2019 meant, and what it was for. I explained that if 100 people meet in a room, and one of them is infected, all 100 could walk out infected, and that\u2019s how the virus could spread. I think I have finally got it through to him that he\u2019s going to have to stop going to the Birds bakery for the very specific (and very small) loaf he insists on eating every day, and that I can buy a packed loaf in the weekly shop that he will have to get used to while we\u2019re in this mess.<\/p>\n
I then asked again what it was he wanted from Wickes: \u2018a roll of roofing felt\u2019!<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, during the storms, the roof of our shed started flapping because the felt had torn. I went ballistic, and said \u2018dad, you\u2019re not climbing on that roof. If you do, I\u2019ll get my air pistol and f***ing shoot you down!\u2019 I stress once more, he is 90 years old, has macular degeneration and cannot see, and COPD, so even taking a shower is a major struggle.<\/p>\n
He almost fell out with me again, but I think I have persuaded him \u2013 and now I\u2019m not working I can keep my eyes on him, because he\u2019s a lying old git and probably still has every intention of trying it if he gets the chance.<\/p>\n
On the plus side, a local roofer is going to get some much needed work, as getting it done professionally has just become my top priority in order to avert impending disaster.<\/p>\n
As an aside, about five years ago I came home from lessons and he was on his bed upstairs covered in blood and cuts (he\u2019s on blood-thinning medication). He\u2019d been trimming the hedge at the bottom of the garden and fallen off the ridiculously unstable plank between two small step ladders he\u2019d rigged up, and into the bushes. When I brought it up in the conversation today, he said \u2018I didn\u2019t fall off \u2013 I just missed my footing when the short plank\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n
I interjected at this point \u2018\u2019\u2026which you\u2019re as thick as two of\u2019.<\/p>\n
Talk about stress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m a carer for my elderly parents. On Thursday, I got up and told my 90-year old dad that I wasn\u2019t doing anymore lessons so I didn\u2019t have to come into contact with people, and the first thing he says is: \u2018can you take me to Wickes, then?\u2019 I said \u2018what? No, I\u2019m not\u2019, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[83,99,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid-19","category-funny-related","category-general-related"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}