36) He has kept EVERYTHING. He isn't faring well and neither am I.

While dad's been in hospital, I've made a start on sorting the ENORMOUS amount of paper in his house. It's apparent he's kept every letter, every bank statement, every envelope, every bit of junk mail, every receipt, every lidl magazine, every cereal box, every serviette, every newspaper, that's come into the house since 1959.

Each bank statement or update or anything is still in its individual envelope. Each envelope is covered in dust or has a nasty stain or an embedded dead spider or something equally unpleasant. All the paperwork stinks of his house. Now my happy place stinks of his house. My family are complaining and I need an industrial shredder to replace my small one which has almost burned out.

Various people have visited dad over the past few days and I've had different reports of how he's doing from 'He's OK' to 'He was loud' to 'he was a little confused.'

Visiting is 2 til 4 or 6 til 8, avoiding tea time at about 5pm as they need the patients to eat with no disruptions. Dad is on a liquid diet anyway. I finish work at 4 and I work 15 minutes away so I have to either kill time or drive home and back.

I went in with Ant. Dad was asleep. I touched his hand gently and he looked at me confused and then at Ant. 'Ah Ant, thank you for coming yesterday and again today.' Ant hadn't - this was his first visit since he came with me Monday.

'I haven't got long left' he said. 'I know that.' then he went to sleep, moments later he perked up but was still asleep. 'HELLO, HELLO,' he said as if he were talking to a long lost friend who he liked very much or to a small grandchild or something. Where's the dog?' He doesn't have a dog. 'I still want a dog you know.'

Will you help me off with these damn shoes - I need to lie down and get some sleep. Is somebody going to help me get these damn shoes off. I've been asking for an hour. He'd been asleep for the past 35mins and he was already lying down - he had no shoes on.

'Why do you keep waking me up?' he asked - I just need to get some sleep.

He was talking a whole load of twaddle to be fair. He made no sense and then he said, 'Why are you just standing there like a lemon?'

I asked the nurse who said he'd been chatting earlier and he'd had breakfast and had walked himself to the toilet on his zimmer frame. This was very unlike the man in front of me. Dad asked the nurse if she'd get his shoes off. She said he didn't have shoes on. He's having antibiotics in liquid form as he can't swallow the capsules. She sat him up to take it. The nurse said his blood pressure etc were all good. She left.

A moment later he said 'I need to go for a leak. Is someone going to help me?' We weren't sure if he meant it, but he then shouted it more urgently so we got the nurse for him and she took him. he used the zimmer but couldn't walk very well.

I took Ant home and took a few more boxes for sorting. It's now 2am and I've just finished 3 of the 6 boxes from today. He really has kept EVERYTHING paper from that house. See photos...

Some After Eight chocolates dated 2013