Mother is in a nursing home with a broken pelvis and vascular dementia. Her last fall has taken a big toll on her. She now needs specialist care and I’m facing down the guilt which comes with accepting I can’t look after her anymore. The frustration that we can’t visit her in the home makes […]

I often wake up with mixed emotions about the day ahead. I’m not sure why. I used to be bubbly at breakfast and often thought I was at my best before noon. Carpe diem, I used to say to myself every morning, like Bertie Wooster, pumped on Highballs for Breakfast. Now, I start too many […]

Mother is slowly sipping roast parsnip soup under the watchful eye of her carer. She eats her lunch purposefully, leaning her head down as she brings the spoon up to her lips. Her right-hand trembles, but this time the soup doesn’t slop over the side of the spoon. ‘We’re going make you big and strong […]

I am standing naked on the bathroom scales with my eyes shut tight and my head bowed like a criminal in court, waiting for the judge to pass sentence on me. I already know the verdict: guilty. The only question is how severe the sentence will be. My crime? My diet has gone off the […]

Mother is the centre of a lot of attention Mother is back home after ten days in the hospital and is the centre of a lot of attention. Not just from us. She’s on the care list of the NHS integrated community response service team, which includes a nurse, a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, a […]

I take off my walking boots and sweaty socks in the porch of the cottage and hobble bare foot to the kitchen mantel piece, where my mobile phone is charging, below a map of the Brecon Beacons. The family and I have been out walking along the River Usk for over four hours and we […]

I am co-chairing with my wife a family meeting to discuss the battle plans for the week-long holiday we’re about to take in the Brecon Beacons. I am co-chair in name only, of course, because my wife has already made all the decisions and my only job as co-chair is tell the children to shut […]

In America you can buy Thanksgiving gravy infused with cannabis which my daughter cites as one example of how good gravy can enhance a meal. ‘Enhance is one word for it,’ I say thinking about the havoc a dose of THC, the chemical in cannabis, might have upon Mother who loves gravy like F Scott […]

A middle aged man realises his elderly mother can no longer cope alone, so she moves in with them. Squeezed by the demands of the demographic time bomb and the requirements of the rest of the family, the Man in the Middle is bemused that life has become a hi-wire act, just when he thought […]

A middle aged man realises his elderly mother can no longer cope alone, so she moves in with them. Squeezed by the demands of the demographic time bomb and the requirements of the rest of the family, the Man in the Middle is bemused that life has become a hi-wire act, just when he thought […]

A middle aged man realises his elderly mother can no longer cope alone, so she moves in with them. Squeezed by the demands of the demographic time bomb and the requirements of the rest of the family, the Man in the Middle is bemused that life has become a hi-wire act, just when he thought […]

A middle aged man realises his elderly mother can no longer cope alone, so she moves in with them. Squeezed by the demands of the demographic time bomb and the requirements of the rest of the family, the Man in the Middle is bemused that life has become a hi-wire act, just when he thought […]

A middle aged man realises his elderly mother can no longer cope alone, so she moves in with them. Squeezed by the demands of the demographic time bomb and the requirements of the rest of the family, the Man in the Middle is bemused that life has become a hi-wire act, just when he thought […]

A middle aged man realises his elderly mother can no longer cope alone, so she moves in with them. Squeezed by the demands of the demographic time bomb and the requirements of the rest of the family, the Man in the Middle is bemused that life has become a hi-wire act, just when he thought […]

A middle aged man realises his elderly mother can no longer cope alone, so she moves in with them. Squeezed by the demands of the demographic time bomb and the requirements of the rest of the family, the Man in the Middle is bemused that life has become a hi-wire act, just when he thought […]