29th February 2008 - Leap Year Day

"Are you no gaun tae ask Rab tae marry ye then Sal?" Clare shouted through to Sal in the kitchen.

"That'll be buckin' right. Is it no bad enough I've goat two bairns tae hum, cook his dennners, wash his scants and pick up efter him - you wantme tae loose ma independence an' aw?" Sal shouts back and then urgently "Molly! Oot the kitchen. Yer an awfy wummin for no daeing as yer tellt". Molly duly ambles slowly out of the kitchen, muttering resentfully "Just wanted to help with the dishes - is that too much to ask?". "Git" bellows Sal and Molly hastens her pace.

"How aboot you Clare, you gonna pop the question wi' your Lee?" Sal asks Clare. Clare scoffs disparagingly from her six foot high head "Are ye awf her heid? Clare McClair? I dinnae thinks so. I suppose I could go hyphenated but I dinnae fancy McGlinchey-McClair neither. And onyway, I'm too yound tae git merrit. I'm only 19".

19. 9 fucking teen! She's only 19. She's so calm, so patient with the residents, so gentle, so mature. 19. Bloody hell. It seems like forever since I was 19. Shouldn't she be out, seeing the world, having carefree fun rather than cleaning old folk and living with Lee? "Each to their own" as my mother would have said "Each to their own".

Dad - who had been determinedly asleep for the first 20 minutes of my visit - roused himself and said "Tea. Make tea. Peas." So I went to make him a cup of tea. When I returned he was picking his nose and trying to flick the resultant green sticky goo off his finger. He wasn't having any success and when I put his mug of tea down, he held up his finger to me, like a toddler might, for me to dispose of the offending bogie. I got a tissue and removed it. I'd not think twice about performing this service for my daughter, so why does it gross me out so much to do it for my Dad?
He finished the tea, put the mug down and immediately ask for another. Lately he's had a thick gooey mucous sticking his lips together when he wakes. It doesn't seem to shift when he's awake but I think that might be because his brain doesn't recognise that he should lick his lips to remove it. Tea seems to help though. He's losing weight - again I think because his brain doesn't correctly interpret his body's 'hungry' signals - so the sugar in his tea will at least give him a few calories.

"Wit aboot you Jeannie - wit are you gonna dae wi' yer extra day?" Sal asks me. "No extra days peas" says Dad "No more days".