I went in to see Isobel just before mid-day. She was awake when I arrived but not very alert. Her speech was very limited, I hardly got a clearly spoken word out of her during this visit. She managed just a handful of three or four word responses. This is much worse than it has been over the past few weeks. Much of her speech was inaudible and could not be clearly made out when she repeated it.

Isobel's right arm was not very badly swollen and a few minutes massage sufficed to loosen it up. This is, I think, a result of the great deal of work done yesterday. I read to Isobel from her book for about ten minutes before her meal arrived.

For lunch Isobel had beef with mashed potato, peas and swede. She started off briskly eating this but soon ran out of steam. the were two episodes in which she spluttered food over me and the bed. She finally cleared her plate after about forty minutes, there is no doubt this was due to tiredness and consequent slowness in swallowing. She could only manage a few mouthfuls of her desert, apple crumble. She drank all her soluble paracetemol with an additional half beaker of water to wash it down. I managed to get almost all of a beaker of thickened tea down her.

I went home soon after half past one. Overall Isobel was very poor today.