It’s become a kind of tradition that she reads out, over the phone, the Home’s entertainment itinerary for the week. Last week’s was particularly spectacular, including darts in the lounge. As she explained, this is a seated version in which the carer on duty brings the dart board to the player who then, thrusts a plastic dart in its direction. We laughed rather uncontrollably at this not really taking into account the fact that, when she first became a resident she attended one of these sessions herself. “It is actually quite hard,” she said, leaving us a little shame-faced at our rather noisy ridicule. We have to be more careful. There is an assumption that she is laughing along with us when we gently dig at the Institution’s attempt at distraction, such as Banjo Barry, Bingo and the various folk singers and memory artists they rope in. And she does join in, but there’s a underlying pathos to this, she is there, stuck, incarcerated for the rest of her life, she has to make the best of it, we don’t. He texted her an apology. I hope she understood and accepted it. For I do love and care what she thinks and feels.
And there is yet more horror in R. A woman is to be imprisoned, possibly for 20 years, for treason. She’s lives in America but went home to see her family. Her crime was to pay money into a charity in support of Ukraine. How did they find this out? Poor love. Keep her safe. Please.
