love and care

in which the past comes alive over a cup of tea only to vanish in the face of present woes and future concerns…   We’ve made it from the care home to the bungalow without a hitch and now we’re sitting side-by-side looking out on the garden…We’ve been teleported from one world to another quicker …

Continue reading "episode nine: past, present and future tense"

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in which I launch a daring daylight raid on the care home and, to my surprise, meet little resistance in liberating  both my mother and her rather splendid orchid…   It’s homecoming day. Can you believe it? I can’t. But there it is on the classic motorcycles calendar bought from the pound shop and pinned …

Continue reading "episode eight: return of the orchid"

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…in which I lose my father, spend some hours fishing despite the strong scent of deja vu, find my father again and look for a travelling companion for the journey to come…   First up, my mother has a firm release date from the care home of April 27th. That’s only a couple of weeks …

Continue reading "episode seven: infamy, infamy…"

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in which I finally break the news to my mother, who remains calm throughout, and face the scorn of drunken cavaliers alone…for now…     “What are you doing here?” says my mother. She’s smiling, as if relishing my surprise. Her head is bowed as usual and her shoulders are almost in line with her …

Continue reading "episode six: what am I doing here?"

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in which an ‘outing’ leads to an unlikely bond between adversaries and the reservations of well-intentioned parties rattle my confidence…     My sister is cleaning my parents’ bungalow with my ex-wife as enforcer. I can hear their exclamations and appeals to God from the other end of the bungalow. I’m in the kitchen clearing cupboards …

Continue reading "episode five: through the wardrobe"

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in which, I, or rather we, ruminate on love at first sight and Genie’s photo in particular…why did she choose it? Am I reading too much into it?  And what would Genie herself say? Last time, I promised a break from family matters and especially the war between fathers and sons…so, in keeping my word, …

Continue reading "episode four: reflections on love"

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in which my father comes back to life, only to face a ruthless assassination attempt by his faithless son… We sit either side of her, me on the piano stool, my sister in a resident’s chair that happens to be empty. That’s maybe the spookiest element of this place. Sometimes the residents disappear without warning …

Continue reading "episode three: a resurrection…of sorts"

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in which love arrives unexpectedly, in the form of a photograph…a photograph of a woman I recognise and yet have never seen before… It was full night when we arrived at Phil’s broken down farmhouse. Nothing had changed. In fact, everything was just as it was when he’d moved in twenty years before. A Belling …

Continue reading "episode two: falling for a photograph"

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in which the end of one life signals the beginning of another, and I recall a road trip to the south of France…   This is what I remember… I remember the busy corridor jammed with people. I remember the nurse, in something of a panic, asking us to wait before going into the hospital …

Continue reading "episode one: endings and beginnings"

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in which the story is outlined, the main characters introduced and we set off on a voyage of discovery…   I was living in the south of France, where the skies are blue nine months of the year, where the Saturday market sells fresh oysters—for those who like such things—and the ice-cold rosé wine is …

Continue reading "welcome aboard: a three minute intro"

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