An interesting day today, not a disaster but it seemed to come close to one at times.

It took several hours before Isobel settled down to sleep in the hospital bed, at first she was positioned across it with her feet dangling over the side while she intermittently dozed and complained that she could not use the bed upstairs, but eventually about 2.30am I got her into a comfortable position and she slept through until 8.30 am. When she woke the bed was wet, but this does not cause much of a problem with the hospital bed.

Isobel refused to have breakfast or go to the hospice today and was generally very grumpy; but eventually agreed to bath. Afterwards she dressed and allowed her teeth to be cleaned, then after further discussion agreed to go to the hospice. She arrived at the hospice not long before 11am.

After dropping Isobel off at the hospice I bought the parts for the new upstand pipe in the kitchen for the new washing machine, as the old one was far too short. The new washing machine had been delivered late Friday when Isobel and I were in Norfolk and was missing a few parts mentioned in the installation instructions. I suspected these related only to transit of the machine; this proved to be correct but it took a large number of telephone calls to the retailer, their service agents and eventually the manufacturer to establish this: two of the contact numbers given to me were incorrect and a number of calls were disconnected by automatic routing systems. Iona came round for lunch and confirmed she is resigning from her three jobs at the school. Her position has been made very difficult as the school are refusing any compassionate leave to assist with the care of her mother (who remains on the staff of the school, unpaid). By the time I collected Isobel at 3pm, the washing machine was ready for action and the new upstand pipe had been installed. The machine ran continuously from 3.15pm until 1.40am. Isobel's walking today has been variable, generally poor in the first part of the day but getting noticeably better towards the night. Her speech has not been very good, a number of conversations have ended without us being able to understand what she was talking about, this is of course very frustrating for Isobel.

Isobel had steak pie, mashed potato and beans for dinner followed by rhubarb crumble. As she was not willing to sleep downstairs again, she dozed on the sofa until the upstairs bed was reconstructed well after midnight.