Yesterday brought Teressa and John here for the afternoon and loads of explanations to the past week. When the doorbell rang I had to unlock the storm-doors for them and as I was turning the key I spotted a letter had been delivered, well a card with inside it two cheques and a letter, here at last was the explanation as to what was happening in Aberdeen. The card was from my mother and the letter from my brother, I wish I had checked if there was any post when the postman rang for me to let him into the close, but I forgot as I usually do. If I had just checked I would have had the time to read properly and to absorb what it said, rather than a quick scan as I tried to make the coffee. Although I had tried on Christmas day to phone I had had no reply from either Mums phone or Brian’s and I had actually tried again just before Teressa and John arrived but without answer or even an answer machine. It wasn’t until today that I was really fit to take the time needed to sort out in my head what had happened and what my feelings were about the whole situation. Apparently Mum fell in July and broke one hip and fractured a bone in her other leg, she has been in hospital ever since. According to the letter she has had an operations on both but has totally lost her confidence in doing anything for herself and has had to accept that going back to her home will never happen. She is now in the city hospital waiting for a place to come free at a nursing home they have chosen for her, as the waiting list is long. Although her body is now failing her he has said that she is fine in herself, but the killer line was that they felt it was better not to worry me with this information.

I didn’t cry at all yesterday after I had read the letter and at last knew what had happened to her, although I couldn’t in my mind connect my tears to the disappearance of my mother and all the scenario’s that my mind had come up with, I am beginning to think that was the catalyst. I know that my relation ship with my mother isn’t and never has been great, but there has always been that acknowledgement to the roles we play in each others lives, an acknowledgement that included the Christmas order of cards, gifts and phone calls. I honestly didn’t realise just how much that actually really meant to me, but I do know that from the second week of December I was very aware of things just not being right. The tears are gone but they have been replaced with anger at my brother, I can’t help feeling how dare he and my sister take it upon themselves to decide what I need and don’t need to know. When my father died I though that Brain and I had come to an understanding about the rest of the family, as he is usually in almost the same position as I am when it comes to contact, although he is much closer to my Mother, so for him to not phone me hurts. I didn’t call him yesterday to thank him for the cheque or to find out the details as I wanted to enjoy my time with my family as it was truly limited as today they are heading back down south.

Like most visits most of it was spent just sitting talking but we had a strange session of Teressa sitting in my bedroom trying on my boots to see if they would fit her as I have 5 pairs of almost never worn thigh high sued boots. Unfortunately they just didn’t fit her, for a start with her hight they where just knee high on her and although she swore we were the same size all of them nipped her toes. Adam manage to arrive home at the time he predicted and we between us managed to make a dinner of “Stovies” which went down well despite they all claimed to have never had them before, but other than John I knew I had cooked it for them several times. It’s strange just how much rubbish you can come up with to talk about and how fast and easily the time passed, but I was by around 6 o’clock paying for it all big time. I just couldn’t sit in comfort and the spasms I was having in my back, above and below my waist, were driving me mad, I desperately didn’t want to take my morphine as I didn’t want the risk of it putting me to sleep on top of the gin we had already been drinking. So I found myself either sitting with my hands behind me and my knuckles sticking into my flesh so they could apply pressure on the worst spots, or hunched forward over my knees, trying to stretch the spasm away. Adam kept asking if I was OK, one of those questions I didn’t think needed to be asked as clearly I wasn’t, maybe that is a bit unfair on him, I know he was just concerned.

I knew that I should have gone to bed as soon as they left, but I just wanted to sit for a while, to have just that small amount of time with Adam before I vanished for the night. So I sat there still in pain watching a program that if I am honest was more just there than something I was taking in. My thoughts were locked on that letter and the bits I had scanned in the afternoon, I don’t know why I didn’t read it fully once it was just the pair of us, but I didn’t want to, I wanted to stay as far from it as I could, I was also more in need of settling my physical pain before I ventured into what might be a mental on. So I have read it again and I have now written about it, but still I can’t make any logical sense of it, it just doesn’t add up. I can’t do anything about it, it is just the way it is, but I do need at some point to speak to Brian and find out what he is up to and yes to thank him for his cheque.