DIAPERS

That's what he's in now, I just heard. Daddy. Can you bear it. A Viking in diapers. Doesn't follow, somehow. Apparently it's easier to change them--they just have tabs either side--than Depends, which pull on and off. 

I can't get the image out of my mind. 

Bonnie found him this morning sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to get up, but made him wait a few hours until Erika the Hospice Home Health Aide arrived, and then with Dominick's help they got him into a wheelchair and into the den. He seemed perky-ish. Asked for a Pecan Sandie, which he managed half of. Acts like it hurts to swallow, Bonnie reports. Not counting the cookie, Daddy's only got down a few sips of OJ yesterday with something gag-making called Thick-It in it, which I guess thickens it, not sure why but this is supposed to make it easier to swallow. 

Bonnie has mass-mailed The Staff--and copied me--the new meds routine, which doesn't strike me as too different from the old meds routine with the addition of cough medicine and of course the morphine but it pleases me she's so on the ball. She reports at the end of every day. Yesterday she included the full contents of the little booklet Hospice gave out when they came on board, part of their "packet", detailing The Final Countdown--my caps, not theirs. What to expect in the final 3 months, then weeks, then days, then hours, then minutes. I'd actually already read it, as it happens, and noted that some of the stuff expected at "hours" to live, Daddy has  been exhibiting since he first came home from the nursing home last October, like being vague and sleeping a lot. So it's all relative. And hard to judge. I would say almost impossible to judge. But I think it helps Bonnie to have it all out in black and white to refer to.

Emotions running high, for sure, on both sides of the Atlantic.

The good news is the French air traffic controllers have ended their strike early, so DK and I will be able to fly back to the UK tomorrow as planned. Even though we haven't finished editing and now will have to come back in ten days. It's only just over an hour from Nantes to London City Airport, and now have figured a way to get to City from Suffolk by train (British Rail then Docklands Light), thus eliminating the parking fees (££) and if we get picked up over here and returned to Nantes airport, no rental car fee either. We've used the rental exactly once in the whole five days here, tonight, to get lost driving to La Baule and back for dinner since out hosts had a party to go to. Not worth it (the car, dinner was good). The first time we'd actually felt like we were in France, having been cooped in Bruce's studio since Tuesday, seeing the sun only at breakfast and maybe ten minutes for lunch on the terrace. I eat more bread in an hour here than I normally do all month. It's SO GOOD.

So. Off to the US? Or can I wait until after France again. I wait for the call. Ooo la bleedin' la.

PS. Denis just discovered the rental car halfway down the stone drive, half up a steep bank, one wheel in the air. Apparently the emergency brake decided to not stick when I parked it earlier, facing in the other direction too. Jesus. Just missed the stone wall and the host's Mini.  Denis nearly went under in trying to get the uphill drivers door open so I could slide in and try and put it all right again. 

Am now weepy. Everything, I guess. Fucking rental Opal tipped the balance.