Evil daughter assaults crippled OAP in cardiff hospital...

29th August  2013

Axe murderer tendencies

I have been away in Devon for four days. The kids needed the break and had been looking forward to their 'holiday'. It was booked months ago and was not fair for me not to go with them.  They have had a rotten school holiday since their Grandad fell off the ladder, I have not been able to be with them for a lot of the time and they deserved a holiday. It was meant to be five days but I had to get back for the house and also it was raining there so we came home Thursday night instead of Friday morning.  This means I have another full day at the mountain tomorrow.

I have not slept much for a fair few days with things running through my head.  I can't work out where to start.  Perhaps 'Hoarder's Block' is a real condition.  OK, I have already made a start but I know that anyone who had not seen how it was to start with would still see only the mess that is still remaining.  The kitchen is down to about a fifth of the mess it was but there is still too much mess by far.

Should I wait for the health/home discharge assessor to come round first?  I think the pro-active approach is the best best plan of attack.  I propose to clear one room fully so there is somewhere to put excess 'stuff' - there is a choice of two rooms which could be pulled into service for this purpose, neither of which has been used in many years and so neither of which will have anything in it that he will need.  The first room is upstairs.  It used to be my bedroom when I was a kid. The other is the 'playroom'. Playroom! - ha ha.  It was supposed to be for us kids to play in although I do not remember ever playing in there other than one fab game - 'marbles'. There was a copper pipe built in the wall from the playroom to the kitchen and my brother and I used to have hours of fun rolling marbles through the pipe from one room to the other. (No computers back then).  The room has a wood block floor and is right at the front of the house on the ground floor.  Currently the mess is well up to halfway up the level of the window and looks terrible from the road.  Somewhere in there is my mother's sewing machine I have been asking for for fifteen or more years.  This room would be a good room to clear and then put the overflow from the rooms already cleaned and the hallway/landing etc etc.

The other room is my old bedroom on the top floor next to the bathroom which would be good if he were allowed to climb the stairs. Currently this room is like Narnia.  The whole of the door frame has been used for the past ten or so years as a wardrobe rail.  There are numerous jackets hanging over the frame.  If you pull the coats apart you can just see the room the other side.  Very much what I imagine Narnia to be like although without the snow.  There is a whole lost world in there.

I thought best ask him which room he thought was best to start with.

He still appears to be under the impression they will let him out to clear the house himself.  He has told me many times I am not to touch anything in the living room as it is all in sorted piles and ready for him to do his tax return.

I therefore broached the subject as follows:

'Dad - I think, for now, I should completely clear just one room in the house.  It would surely be sensible to do this now rather than wait for you to be told the house has to be cleared before you can come home'.
I wanted to reassure him as he has told me many, many times that his paperwork is in the living room, so  I say 'I am NOT talking about the living room.  I will not touch any of your stuff in the living room. I know all you paperwork is organised in the living room so I won't touch that.'

He looks at me a bit stupid.  He says 'I don't want you to go tidying stuff up because...'

I say 'DAD!  I WILL NOT TIDY THE LIVING ROOM AS I KNOW YOUR STUFF IS IN THERE. HOWEVER, I think I should start clearing the playroom or my old bedroom so we can put excess stuff in there.'
I saw him heckling up for an argument I knew without a doubt what he was about to say.  I therefore said as loudly and as clearly as I could possibly muster 'I will not touch the living room - only the two unused rooms'

He started to say 'I don't want you to touch the living room' he clearly had not heard (or listened to a single word I had just said - too pre-occupied with his own speech which, of course, as ever, is of far more importance than anything I could ever possibly have to say.

It was obvious he was not listening to a word I was saying even though I was speaking all words very slowly and clearly and a BBC news reader at half speed could not have been any clearer.   Why do I feel as if he never listens to a thing I say? I always get the impression he does not listen to me because he does not believe I ever have anything of any intelligence to say.  He still acts as if I am 10.

I say 'DAD - ONLY THE PLAYROOM OR MY OLD ROOM - WHICH ONE IS BEST?'

He then shouts over me 'I WISH YOU WOULD LISTEN TO ME GIRL'.... He looks at me as if I have just crawled out of the gutter and continues 'I don't want you to touch any of my paperwork in the living room because..' (at this point I wonder if I would be justified in punching him), I decide it is easier to let him continue with his speech about his paperwork which I have heard so many times before.  I sigh and stare hard at the pattern on his blanket. I let him get on with it - it is the only way we can move on with the conversation.  Until he has said his bit clearly he will not even entertain giving anything I have to say the time of day.  He continues slowly, as if he is talking to some form of imbecile..  .'it is all organised in there and I have all my paperwork in there laid out'.

I give up communicating on an adult level yet again.  I feel my blood pressure rising. I must keep my axe murderess thoughts under control.

Again I left the hospital under an enormous thundercloud. I still have no idea whether I have his ok/permission to clear the house or whether he will blame me forever for messing up his paperwork.  Am I doing the right thing in trying to tidy it?  It is not safe for him to return home and the 'Return Home Officer' will surely agree.  Surely then it is best to start now as this is a job which will take months.

He is clearly under the impression he will be allowed out to clear it up himself.  I have tried to point out that I am not even going to try to sort his paperwork out but that 1000 decomposing carrier bags, 60 margarine tubs, 37 Lidl weekly newsletters (dating back to 2006), METRO newspapers, old underpants, jar lids (without jars), broken odd shoes (of which there are many), 8000 corks, empty bottles, scrunched up old tissues, food tins up to 15 years out of date, pots and pans where the non stick is flaking so badly it is a health hazard, bits of string etc, can, by most normal people's opinion be binned. He says he has 'obviously kept them all for some reason' - he suggests that perhaps the phone went while he was in the middle of reading each one.  The man is clearly deluded.

It would make it SO much easier for me if I was doing this with his blessing and agreement.  I know I will have to do it someday so why won't he let me help him now?  He has suggested I 'clear the stairway and around his bed 'so that if anyone (ie paramedics/doctors/nurses) need to go to his bedroom they will be able to get in and to get him out.  In order to clear anything I need a space to put everything but he obviously does not trust my judgement to throw anything out.

I have such an ongoing headache these last few weeks I should get shares in Ibruprofen. I really don't usually do headaches.

:(