Marie has her 65th birthday today. Her retirement is planned for the 13th July for a good reason, so that it falls in the next financial year. Things are in train for moving to her new lifestyle. She is seeing Mum each week on Mondays, even though she is still working.

On Thursday Mum had an appointment at St John of God to see a different specialist, I think a dementia specialist. He did the usual test, and she did slightly better than last time, perhaps test/retest learning. He asked about a lot of things and advised us that she should set up an enduring Power of Attorney, soon, because things will get worse. I don’t really know what it was like for her to hear what he had to say. We discussed a medication which may slow things down, and agreed to wait until she is a bit more settled. When we got home she was quite negative again about going back there. She has a physio appointment and a referral to OT has been made, but she can’t really understand how this will benefit her. Sometimes she seems to understand her condition and other times is in denial, which is what one would expect.

I had to leave in the afternoon, but rang her today, and she seemed OK on the phone. I reminded her to ring Marie, I knew she would want to phone her on her birthday. I asked how her shoulder is going.

I’ve asked Cheryl if she could witness the POA, and she will ring Monday to set up a time. We need another witness as well. I am worried because I don’t know where Mum will be on the matter, but hope because it is Marie and I, she will be OK with it.

We had an enjoyable choir session in the evening. On Friday I posted six tins of milk formula to China and filled the car up with petrol. We went for quite a long walk in the evening, to the train station, off at Burswood, then down to the Causeway to catch a bus home. That doesn’t sound that much, but I had done nearly the 10,000 steps for the day, which included the walk. I felt very tired by the time we caught the bus.

Today I woke up with a tension headache which didn’t shift after the cup of tea. I ended up staying in bed the whole day. I’ve been eating, so not that sick, but having some periods of feeling really unwell. I’m amazed that a couple of doses of Panadol have helped so much as the headache wasn’t that bad, yet each dose has made me feel quite a lot better in every way. Placebo?

Tonight we rented The Danish Girl from iTunes. It was very well done and quite amazingly beautiful. Even simple rooms in their apartment looked absolutely gorgeous. Maybe the subject matter of two artists lent itself to creating something that was pleasing to watch. His role had echoes with him playing Stephen Hawking, a vulnerable yet self involved character, very flawed and attractive.