We are sitting in the bit of garden left over after the extension. It has cleared up since this morning. Dad says, see that hedge. A few years ago it was thin and little. I could talk over it and see through it. I look at the hedge. It is dense and about nine feet high. Yes, I say, it’s all grown over. Then I say, you know I’m off tomorrow. Ah, says dad. I’m taking the train. But David’s coming on Friday, so you’ll only be on your own one night. Oh, he says, you’ll have to stay another night. I can’t, I say. I’ve got my ticket now. I know this works best; the material trumps everything. You’ll be all right for one night. Then David’s here for the weekend. Then Liz is back from Italy on Monday and she’ll come and pick you up and you’ll be at her house for a couple of weeks till Helen comes back and it’s back to normal again. He likes normal. Remember your glasses and your pills and everything, won’t you? when Liz comes to get you. I shouldn’t have said that. He starts to fret about everything he’ll have to remember.
When I came here a week ago I thought I’d write a post and call it Egg and Chess because I wanted to get dad playing chess and get him eating egg. I thought that’d be good for him. He soon put me right on that: didn’t want to be taught chess and didn’t like eggs. Fair do’s. We are looking at the hedge, which is mature and tangled, formidable really. Do you want an ice cream? I suggest perkily. No, he says and looks somewhere else.

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