Thursday, December 20, 2007

Double Dutch?

Why is it the Dutch who are "double" if something is incomprehensible? Why not Double Faroese or Double Tagalog?

One of the things that the LA had been concerned about in their assessment of Mum's assessment (!) had been the lock-down regime..! I say "lock-down" because that's how they make you feel, when they bring up the issue of Locking the Door. You know why you do it. The door is locked on a cold winter's day because the prospect of Mum trying to find our house in temperatures of sub-zero, to bring me a tea-bag without a coat, gloves, or proper shoes on, is ever-so-slightly a worse risk on the risk evaluation scale. "But it's against our policy to lock people in" says the LA. "We don't like it".

Neither do I. But if it's OK for Mum's door to be locked after a security check at night - when those with dementia cannot tell the difference between day and night - what's the difference? Double Dutch indeed. Or is it double standards? I don't think so - I think it's just a lack of commonsense. Rules is rules - even when they don't make sense.

It doesn't distress Mum. She isn't tugging at the door, desperate to get out. All the switches are turned off and Mum never attempts to cook anything. Bless her cotton socks, she hated cooking even when she could wield a wooden spoon. My brother and I were raised on a 365, 24/7 diet of salad. Meringue crumbled in Angel Delight was an exotic concotion she came up with AFTER attending a cookery course! (Oh Marco Pierre White, I have been lead down paths that you have barely dreamed of, that are so far distant from the Cusine Ordnance Survey.....!) She doesn't have a cat, so never puts ice-cream down in a bowl on the floor (See Y-O-Y for that oblique reference!)

And just for the record, I also took a photo of Mum (without her permission), so that I could give the police a home-made A4 laminated Identikit of Mum. That way, if she does wander, we can take her home immediately rather than process her via the local outpatients department after treatment for hypo-thermia...

Stuff that in your PC pipe and smoke it...!

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