A Difficult Couple of Days

The last few days have been very difficult for me due to Margaret's increasing antagonism towards me and my increasing irritation with her behaviour.

The weekend started well with me giving the house a really good clean up on Saturday and doing all the washing. This kept me busy all morning and after lunch I just wanted to relax and watch the cricket and tennis on TV for a couple of hours. Margaret had other ideas as she wanted to use her computer and spent three hours just playing with it. Unfortunately, every 20 minutes or so (sounds familiar) she would get lost and come in to tell me the computer had “broken down” again. It only takes about two or three minute to close the multitude of windows and web pages which Margaret has opened and restore the computer to the start condition but after the fourth time I was in a foul mood.

On Sunday I spent the morning cleaning up the garden and mowing our lawns with our little push mower. I don't like gardening but actually get some relaxation just pushing the mower up and down building up a good sweat in our warm humid morning weather conditions. In the afternoon Margaret became more and more irritable. I could not do anything right. She was also having occasions of incontinence which she can not help but it really disrupts any thing I am trying to do. She also got lost on her computer several times.

Yesterday was my early week shopping day which, as it was forecast to be a pig of a day, I got done before 9.30 am. When I got home I close up the house and switched on our Air Conditioners (ACs) as the temperature was over 31C/90F and the humidity was rising. We have three split system ACs. One in our kitchen/living are, one in the lounge/dining area and one in Margaret's bedroom. The first two have to be switched on together as there are no doors to separate the living areas. Normally when all three are on we just leave all inside doors, including the one to Margaret's bedroom, open. The one in Margaret's bedroom can be shut off so it is possible to just air condition her bedroom by shutting the door. Margaret said she didn't want her AC on and opened the windows and switched on her ceiling fan but she would not close her bedroom door thus causing all the cool air in the rest of the house flow out through her bedroom to the open air and made the other two AC work flat out. We had a flaming row over this. Margaret insisting that I should switch off the other ACs and me telling her to shut her door.

We had to go out to get blood taken for Margaret's blood tests for her visit to her specialist this Wednesday. Margaret had asked me when she should be ready and I had said 11.00 am. About 10.30am Margaret told me she was going to shower. At 11.00 am she was still not ready but told me not to rush her. At 11.30 she was sitting, totally undressed on her bed say that she did not know what to wear. I selected some clothes and dressed her and we were out at about 12.00 noon with the temperature nudging 35C/95C and with 80% humidity. Luckily our car was in the garage and relatively cool so with its AC going flat we had a quick cool trip tho the pathology collection centre. A quick transfer using that wheel chair soon had us inside and her blood successfully collected.

Now the trouble really began Margaret wanted to go to a nearby shop which sold discounted casual gear and shoes (Rivers) to look at shoes. Now I haven't referred too much to her legs and feet recently but they are enormous and the only shoes she can wear are a pair of woolly sheep skin scuffs or slippers. I reluctantly pushed her around the store and she made me, by creating a scene, push her around the whole women's shoe section at least three time trying to find a pair of shoes which would fit. She was very annoyed with me because she couldn't find any and at one time I nearly walked out and left her but sanity prevailed.

Finally I got her back into the, now, furnace of a car to go home but no Margaret wanted to go to a shoe shop in Tewantin.. I could not persuade her that it would be no good but she started to make a scene saying that I never did any thing she wanted and she never went shopping etc so I capitulated.
When we got to Tewantin I had to park some way from the shoe shop and by the time I had got Margaret into her wheel chair and pushed her to the shop was covered in sweat and quite exhausted. Of course there were no suitable shoes bot the sales person tried to sell Margaret a $300 pair of sandals very similar to a pair she had at home and it took some time before Margaret could be persuaded to declined them. By now I was in a really foul mood and Margaret still blamed me for not buying a pair of shoes which she couldn't wear or even need.

The ride home was hot and hostile. She stormed, as much as she can, off using her wheely walker and shut herself of in her bedroom. Now I had left all inside doors open and the three ACs on while we were out. Louis was blissfully on the lounge in a pleasant 25C/77F. Next she opened her door and I saw the windows were open and the AC off. I did my block and told her to shut the door using one or two expletives. She responded in kind and told me that she hated me and that I didn't have any feelings for her and so on. Now I am ashamed to say I told her that I was fed up with caring for her and she was on her own. Since then there has been a wary truce between us. She has spent most of her time in her bedroom or the study on her computer. I noticed that she had been using her AC but had changed the temperature setting to 31C so it didn't switch on the cooling cycle. I reset it to 25C when she wasn't looking.

Today, I hope, should be quiet as we have no appointments etc. We are talking but while Margaret appears to have forgotten yesterday she is still in a bad mood. I have got my temper under control but still feel very flat.

Tomorrow we see Margaret's specialist.