Back home and all's well.

Well, it isn't, of course it isn't, it's getting harder and harder. Did I really think I would be able to go away and enjoy myself? I'm so far from that, I've almost forgotten what it means. I had a sudden flash of remembrance late on Sunday night, as I lay down in my tent, that this had been a joyous experience in the past, to be in bed, warm and safe and tired, with no desire to be out in the night, just happy to hear the music and the thrum of the crowds... all that. All gone for now. Just anxiety and dread and grief.

I have to warn you, dear reader, it's not going to get better round here for a long time, if at all. I CANNOT BEAR losing my daughter, seeing her silent and dying slowly but surely, I CANNOT BEAR it, but it is happening, getting closer all the time and I may explode with the unbearable awfulness of it, though I probably won't, but I will come here and rave about it, without much concern for readerly sensibilities.

At times, during the festival, I felt as if my misery had become A Thing in its own right, a thing I'd brought with me, that I couldn't leave behind, and now look, I'd brought my misery to see the fireworks:



Crap, weren't they?

It may have been OK if the festival site hadn't been a black hole of no signal, no wifi, but it wasn't and I had the creeping dreads about what may or may not be happening with ED. I'd thought I could phone every day, that they would put me on speaker phone so ED could hear my voice, that I'd know how she was, but no, cut right off. I wished I hadn't gone, I didn't want to be so far away, I hated it, I was terrified she'd be dead when I came back.

Which she wasn't. But - well, I find I can't describe without her consent - the final indignity - having it spread out on the internet without any editorial control so I won't. But. That's all I'm saying. But. I am worried that this care home is not the right place, that she needs more nursing than they can deliver. But the nursing home for young adults is vile, ex-military - though they'd take her on the basis of my father having been in the RAF, which is bollocks as virtually everyone of my generation had at least one parent in the military, so the link is so tenuous as to be meaningless - anyway, it's run on military lines, all efficiency, no softness and no place for a person as vulnerable as my ED, and she is loved and treated with great tenderness where she is, but there's no trained nurse on site. So that's where I am on that. Scared. Rock. Hard place.


I've got no tolerance for anyone. Shut up, I don't give a fuck. That's where I'm hanging out at the moment. It's not a position that wins much in the way of positive results, but, ach, I'm tired, leave me alone.

At the festival I was giving it my best shot, for the family and all. The grandson, the younger daughter, them. YD took this pic of me and I think I look quite plausible:



Not full of the joys of spring but not visibly bursting with desire to punch the next person I hear laughing.

It was hard, though, having my face exposed all the time, having to remember to not let it fall into Resting Broken-hearted Face, as I'm the fucking matriarch around these quarters and if I go down I take everyone with me.

Off to bed now.

Grateful for: a camera to hide behind; the soothing sea; the staff at the home; being alone so my miserable face can be as it is; writing

Laters xxxx