September 2018 – Shrinking Horizons

I am delighted to report that the weight loss continues to be slow but steady although I haven’t had the best of weeks, for some strange reason I have been fighting various cravings. They have not been the usual desire for carbs in the form of the LSO’s lovely sourdough bread slathered in a really good creamy butter, no it’s been for something sweet. I have seldom felt the need for sweets or desserts and have always been able to take them or leave them unlike savouries such as crisps, pastry and bread. I found myself indulging in some dark chocolate and had to stop myself from gorging it all in one go. Is this going to be like every other diet tried in the past?

Definitely not, and as a result of these emotions I decided to do a bit of research and came to the conclusion that I had to get my stress levels under control and perhaps needed to eat a little more protein. Today I am definitely feeling a bit more in control.

The stress of course is caused by the AP who as her impending visit to Scotland looms is trying to be more and more controlling with an attempt at emotional blackmail thrown in for good measure. Then there is the astonishing statement made to a friend of ours earlier this week that ‘I can be as rude as I like because I am a hundred years old and and people just have to accept that’. Unbelievable really and laughable too! Anyway she was firmly put in her place by our friend who told her that the only thing that’s acceptable about her age was that people needed to make allowances for the fact that she was slower at everything. But where on earth did that thought come from? No wonder I don’t know who she is anymore.

But suffice to say the LSO and are are really looking forward to our break from her, to having our freedom and our home back even if just for a month.

Well, the RMR regime continues to work and I have now lost a healthy sixteen pounds so far. Not earth shatteringly fast but steady at mostly a pound to a pound and a half a week and I am happy with that. I don’t feel hungry or deprived, well, maybe occasionally when the LSO makes his sourdough bread and I look at the luscious, plump and sweet plum tomatoes from the greenhouse and have to fight the cravings. I have always loved tomatoes on toast. Although I am still overweight I am aware of reducing in size now and that incentive certainly helps reduce the cravings.

Our month of freedom is approaching and we are both desperately in need of a break from the AP who continues to be obtuse and difficult especially when we have to explain anything to her. I do sometimes wonder if it is deliberate, this selective refusal to understand anything said to her or is it just that her brain is deteriorating. We sound like a record caught in a groove, constantly repeating ourselves. Now that the month away in Scotland is looming she seems to want to control what we do more and more but I have finally found what is probably the most important word in the English language, NO. I refuse to be bullied or harassed by the AP and have developed a detachment that is extremely settling for me and unsettling for her.

I am not cruel, but when you are treated like servants in your own home it really does become important to stand our ground. Please and thank you are words we seldom hear when there is just the three of us, then, when we have visitors staying this gracious old lady suddenly appears, God only knows where from and she plays the grand old dame, totally in charge of her faculties. It’s all rubbish of course, as she nods sagely and appears to listen intently and manages some reasonable responses even when looking at images on phones and iPads that she is actually unable to see. But all this play acting means that most people think life is fine and dandy for us but the truth is the opposite. We are trapped in our own home with this vain, at time unpleasant and demanding old woman and that’s only the half of it. She has no grace and no empathy for others. The AP is the centre of her own universe and is incapable of truly being content with her situation.

Why is she like this? It could just be that she can no longer deal with even the simplest things in her life, the television for one is becoming something she cannot use easily and her life is out of her control, so she tries to control us instead. Unfortunately in doing so she has alienated us both to the point that we really are hugely weary of her very presence in our home and that is just so very sad.

The LSO is finding the AP particularly tiresome and he has become run down and generally disinterested in all the things he likes doing. This is not good and we need to find a way of combatting this terrible feeling of ‘what is the point’. We need to restore our sense of equilibrium and humour, the latter being sadly lacking from our lives these days. The LSO has a marvellous sense of humour but even that is in serious need of revival, humour and laughter have in the past got us through some difficult times, we need to restore it.

At least we have a chance of some recovery in sixteen days time, thanks to my lovely cousin and his wife who are coming to stay for a few days and are then taking the AP back with them.

Month: September 2018

The cracks are appearing.

Not earth shattering.