A change of plan ...

I'd been looking forward to having a return visit to the park this morning, as the weather forecast looked very promising indeed.

However - it was not to be. Allow me to copy and paste the Facebook status I posted at 4.30 am

I just got up to use the loo. Mum's bedroom door was open - I listened at the door and it seemed quiet so was just about to close it when I heard something downstairs. The cord was still across the top of the stairs (I put it there to discourage mum from going down) but saw she was sitting on the bottom step.
Down I went - and when I saw her from the front nearly had a heart attack. She is covered from head to toe in blood. On closer inspection - she's knocked the top off a scab on her leg, which accounts for the lower bloodbath, and has had a nose bleed which accounts for the rest. I checked her over and otherwise she's fine.
Got her back upstairs and find bloody handprints all over the place, blood drips on the wall by her bed, sheets covered in blood, waste bin shattered into pieces... I suppose she tripped over it in the dark and smashed her nose on the wall, but the bizarre thing is, because she has dementia she has no memory of anything having happened.
I gave her a cursory wipe down and have left her in what looks like a rather brutal crime scene.
I know what I'm doing tomorrow morning then.
Bring on the Luminol.




(The Luminol reference will be lost on people who don't watch the same appalling American 'real crime' programmes that I do!)


So, I eventually got her up, and before I had got her into the shower that she SO needed, I stupidly tried to clean up her face, causing her nose bleed to restart. Her shower (which really HAD to happen) was like a scene from Psycho.


She was so unhappy about nothing being right (and in many ways it isn't for her) ..  but I got her downstairs and plonked her breakfast in front of her. In fact she's drunk and eaten virtually nothing all day - but has slept a lot.


Back upstairs it really was like a scene from CSI, and my morning was spent removing the blood which had dripped down the walls, smeared all over the mattress, sheets and carpet - not to mention the Zimmer frame which looked like it had been used to bludgeon someone to death.


Mum's nose is very bruised, and her legs rather scratched but otherwise she seems OK.


Here's Mama fox grooming Auntie.