Number of days since lockdown: 74. But that seems almost irrelevant now, given the stupid decisions being made by our government to let everything return to normal before we have a functioning test, track and trace system in place. So I’m going to stop counting and instead give you some more relevant stats.

Number of days since I started writing this blog: 80. Bloody Nora.

Number of words I have written so far: 49,494

Number of days since Dad died: 8

I was awake most of the night thinking about what Mum had said about being born Jewish and dying Jewish. To be honest, it made a nice change from lying awake worrying about being unfaithful to Brian with that bastard Richard. Or whether Brian really loved me and what he would do if he found out. Or just lying awake feeling lonely and sad, knowing my mother was probably lying awake next door feeling just the same but having no idea what to say that might comfort her.

All families have secrets, don’t they? Or maybe they don’t. As Tolstoy said, all happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

And being brutally honest about it, ours has never really been a happy family. There were happy times, of course. But there was always been an undercurrent of sadness, of Things that Must Never be Mentioned. And when we did ask questions, we would be told by Dad that we had better ask our mother. Which we rarely did because doing so risked having one’s head bitten off with one of her famous non sequiturs such as:

Really, Sadie, why do you want to know that?

Or: That’s for me to know and for you never to find out.

Until recently, I have always told myself that things started to go wrong for the Waylands Heath Family Robinson when my older sister Ruth died. Graceful, kind-hearted, hard-working Ruth. Who wanted to be a doctor or a concert pianist or a prima ballerina and could probably have done all three, had she not simply stopped eating when she was 15.

But in all honesty, Ruth was just a salve to our mother’s rage about the unfairness of what life had thrown her way. She was the perfect daughter, unlike me and Lydia who were naughty and annoying, and in my case, fat, greedy and untidy to boot. I think Lydia was generally less of a disappointment than me, but that wasn’t saying much. Ruth kept her bedroom in immaculate condition, and loved helping our mother with the household chores which so enraged her. Until I went to visit other children’s houses, I didn’t know that laying the table could be done without banging every item down so hard that it made all the other things rattle, or that hoovering didn’t necessarily involve smashing the vacuum cleaner into the skirting boards whilst smoking furiously.

Ruth was Mum’s alter-ego, an excellent little housewife without an angry bone in her neat little body. She would hum softly while she dusted the sitting room, always putting everything back exactly where it belonged, unlike me. She was baking excellent Victoria sponges by the time she was ten, as well as making all our packed lunches, and never skimped her piano practice or forgot to do her homework. Every school report was excellent. And the other parents adored her.

We weren’t told what had happened to our maternal grandparents. All I knew was that Mum never saw them again after she left home. After leaving school, she trained to be a secretary. She met Dad shortly after starting her first job. Their wedding photos are in back and white, and as I have mentioned before, Mum is wearing a suit rather than a white dress. There are no guests, not even Dad’s parents. When I have asked Mum why not, she has said variously, Mind your own business, and that they didn’t want to come.

I don’t know what Lydia knows. I dread mentioning Mum’s latest revelation in case it is just me being stupid old Sadie again. But I decide there is no option, so ring her just before lunch when I know she will be free. And I can tell that she is completely pole-axed by it.

We decide that I need to look through my mother’s private papers back at Waylands Heath, in case there is something in there that will affect the decisions we are making about Dad’s funeral. We agree that I must go tomorrow, ie Saturday, afternoon. It will be the first time I will have left Mum on her own and I will be gone for several hours, given it is over 20 miles each way. We make a few Dominic Cummings jokes and then agree this is actually totally within the rules, and Lydia says she will call Mum to check on her while I am out. I say I will text her when I set off.

Mum seems to have forgotten what she said last night and is sitting in the garden complaining about the lack of shelter from the wind when I come off the phone. I feel incredibly guilty that I am going to be snooping through her things tomorrow, and try to make it up to her by offering to do her nails, which she refuses huffily, even though she was bemoaning how awful they looked only an hour earlier.

And that’s it from me for today. I’m supposed to be meeting Brian on Sunday for an early evening walk. He is bringing wine and strawberries, apparently. I’ve also got a Zoom call with Ericka on Saturday morning. Busy busy!

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.

Number of days since lockdown: 73

Number of cigarettes Mum and I have smoked in last 24 hours: nil. Hurrah!

Number of times my mother has watched Midsummer Murders in the last week: just don’t ask.

Yesterday I said I was going to say something about the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in America and the UK following the tragic killing of George Floyd. Who was much loved, innocent and an upstanding pillar of his community. But who should not have died that way even if he had been a hardened criminal. I have wracked my brains and been struggling to know what to write without sounding trite or holier than thou or muscling my way in simply because I have a mixed race granddaughter.

And then I saw this online and I thought I would just say instead that I agree with every word of it. I used to think James Corden was a bit too pleased with himself. Maybe he still is. But on this important matter, he speaks for me. So I don’t need to say any more on that subject.

In more local news, my mother has discovered that I have been cheating. No, no that sort of cheating. Can we move on, please? I mean the sort of cheating you do to an elderly parent when you pretend to be watching something ghastly on TV with them like the aforementioned Midsummer Murders, which seems to be available as a rolling programme of the same 1five episodes every night on ITV3. Or Doctor Foster, ditto. When in fact you are watching Killing Eve on your phone with only one headphone. That sort of cheating. My mother is disgusted. She thinks that everyone in the household must watch the same thing at the same time or the sky will fall in.

I hate to mention but it already has.

It is seven days days since my lovely Dad died in hospital after a second major stroke. And with none of us beside him because of this bloody virus.

But there is a small bit of good news. Because at last Mum seems to be drawing a tiny bit of comfort from having been allowed to visit him the day before he died. This is a tremendous relief to me. And to my sister, whose own brush with Covid-19 seems to have been minor compared with most. Lydia hopes to arrive here next week, in time for the very small funeral we have been organising for 12.00 on Friday 12 June.

Here are the rules for funerals these days, as explained to me in various Zoom calls with the kindly but perhaps rather abrupt funeral director Mr Heap from the Co-op.

• First off, there is no chance to be choosy. You take the date and time slot you are given.
• You can’t hold the funeral in a church because they are still all shut, only at the crematorium, or cemetery if the person is to be buried.
• Only 8 people may attend, and you all have to sit 2 metres apart, even the ones who live together, because the staff can’t tell who is a risk to whom so they have to apply blanket rules.
• You can have one small wreath but otherwise no flowers.
• If you want someone to take the service, such as a priest or celebrant, they are included in the eight people.
• You can film the service for people elsewhere to watch live, but you have to do this yourself or get a professional to do it and they will then be included in the eight people.
• In the case of a cremation, which is what we have opted for, you may collect the ashes a week later, but if you want them interred, you will have to hang onto them for the time being as they are only burying bodies at the moment.

Lydia and I would like to put his ashes where Ruth is buried, and have the stone changed to include him, with space for Mum in due course, but we haven’t discussed this with her yet. In the past, mention of anything relating to her mortality would have her hissing vituperatively that we just wanted her in the ground next to our sister. We would like to avoid such remarks at this time if we can.

When Mum first told me she wasn’t planning to attend Dad’s funeral, I will admit I was not surprised. You can always count on our mother to take the road less travelled. Since then, Lydia and I have been using reverse psychology when talking about the funeral. We have been involving her in plans about it and just ignoring it when she says she doesn’t care what we do because she won’t be there to see it.

And this morning there was a breakthrough. I was helping her to get dressed when she said that she needed to go over to Waylands Heath to pick up some more clothes.

I said You’ve got loads of clothes here, Mum.

And she said, But I need something for next week. I can’t go to your father’s funeral wearing jogging bottoms and a pair of slippers.

And I thought, Get in. But I knew better than to say so.

And then she said something that gave me a massive jolt, because it chimed with what Dad had said when she was in hospital with Coronavirus and we thought she might die.

She said, When I die you will have to do things differently.

And when I asked why, she said, Because I was born in the Jewish faith, Sadie, and I shall die in the Jewish faith.

And I said what are you talking about, Mum?

But she just turned and stumped off to the bathroom on her frame. And now I literally do not know what to think.

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.

Number of days since lockdown: 72

Number of days since Dad died: 6

Number of cigarettes Mum and I smoked yesterday: 23. Very bad. But at least we are now talking.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel the need to make myself cry. I mean at times when life is just a bit shit but there is nothing specific I can put my finger on. And at such times I turn to my favourite books. Growing up, I would re-read the part in Good Wives (the sequel to Little Women although in some editions, they publish it as one book) when Jo March’s sickly little sister Beth dies. I would be sobbing in minutes.

Later I turned to Linda’s death towards the end of The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, which if you haven’t read, I urge you to order a copy online right this minute. Or the penultimate chapter in One Day by David Nicholls. If you’ve read it, you’ll know why. And if you haven’t, you should. Just make sure you have tissues.

Obviously I don’t need such triggers at the moment. I am more than in touch with my feelings, hence the many episodes of uncontrolled crying recorded on these pages. But I am thinking of you, my small but trusty band of followers. And I hope that if you have a general feeling of sadness brought on by lockdown and all the other awful things in the news and are in need of a jolly good weep, that you might find my recent ramblings useful?

Anyway, that’s my justification. But I am also aware you read my blog for the humour and there hasn’t been a lot of that recently. I will try to do better from now on.

Not least because I have actually been talking to Suki’s agent by email at last. Her name is Ericka. She has read my blog and has a few thoughts to offer. To wit:

1. How long am I planning to make it because novels in this genre tend to be between 60,000 and 70,000 words and she has noticed that I have already written 45,000. (47,584 to be precise)
2. She says she appreciates the sad parts of the blog but she thinks I need to balance them with the humorous parts. (Obviously not a follower of Kurt Vonnegut, then.)
3. She likes Brian but thinks he is a bit one-dimensional. (What?)
4. And she thinks I should keep Richard in play because people can relate to him. (Can they??)

During our email exchange, I asked her if she was interested in representing me. Which was obviously a complete faux pas – apparently you have to wait for the agent to ask you, unless you are a Name. Which I clearly am not.

TBH, I’m not sure about Ericka. As Candy says, how can you trust someone who spells their name with a C AND a K when either would do just as well. She says I need to play it cool and see what Ericka comes up with.

Speaking of Candy, we chatted on WhatsApp last night and things sound really good with her. She is taking the greyhounds up onto Hampstead Heath every morning, which she loves. I feel a twinge because I do so love that part of London, I don’t know why. Maurice is feeling much better and he has given her an absolutely gorgeous ring made of diamonds and emeralds that belonged to his mother. I asked her if that meant that they were engaged and she said Oh Sadie, you are so old fashioned. Which I think means yes.

And she gave me some great advice re the small matter of last Saturday night with Richard. Which is this. I am in a vulnerable state because I am grieving for my Dad and caring for my Mum and he took advantage of me. Therefore the fault for what happened lies mainly with him. And that what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over, so it would be pointless and stupid to confess all to Brian and just upset everything for no purpose. Best to draw a line and learn a lesson never to let my guard down with my ex-husband again. Which is unlikely to happen in any case now he is back being all loved up with Karina, who is BTW young enough to be our daughter.

And I agree. Sort-of.

In other news, I’m watching the news about the riots in America and the response of that joke of a president and I have a few thoughts which I will maybe share with you tomorrow. For now I will just say this. As the grandmother of an adorable mixed-race little girl, and the mother-in-law of a proud young woman of Jamaican heritage, I feel very scared and worried. I want to stand alongside them and protect them and for them to feel safe wherever they go.

And I also know this. There is far more that binds us than divides us. We are all members of one race, the human race.

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.

Number of days since lockdown: 67

Number of cigarettes: 2

Number of times in the past 24 hours I’ve hoped this is all a horrible nightmare and that any minute I will wake up: too many.

There are a few ways I might have imagined Mum reacting when I broke the news to her that the hospital had just rung to say that Dad had very sadly died. Weeping, shock, even denial that it had happened. Or anger that she hadn’t been allowed to be there with him. All of them were possible.

But instead, she just said: typical of him, the selfish bastard. I always knew he’d leave me one day.

And then she asked me if I had any cigarettes and stumped off on her zimmer frame to sit in the garden.

I rang Lydia and told her about Dad and we had a little cry together. She said she would come down to visit us the next day, ie today, so we can get started on all the admin. And then we had that ridiculous sort of discussion that grieving families are having to have these days, about whether it would be alright for her to stay on the sofa and would we be able to have a funeral and would she even be allowed to hug Mum.

Just to clarify, I don’t think the rules to stop the virus spreading make losing someone any worse. That isn’t possible. They just get in the way of all the things that you would do naturally to comfort one another. And yourself. It’s one of the reasons why the behaviour of the Prime Minister and his odious advisor has caused so much anger and distress.

After I spoke to Lydia, I rang the children. They both adored their grandfather and were very sad and upset, and somehow that was a very soothing. Toby said he would like to play something at the funeral and I said that would be lovely, even though at that stage I wasn’t even sure if we would be having a funeral. And he said he would come round and see Grandma over the weekend, and Charlotte said she would come down in the week, now that the rules for visiting in the garden have been relaxed.

It was getting dark when I took Mum out a cup of tea and some biscuits. I sat down next to her and said If you haven’t smoked all those cigarettes, please may I have one? And she handed me the almost empty pack in silence. We sat there for a while and then I said that Lydia would be coming down tomorrow.

And she said, I hope she spares me one of her bereavement lectures.

And I said, oh Mum, she loves you very much.

And she said, I know that Sadie. I just find kindness very difficult to accept.

And I thought, yes I know you do, Mum, and that is the hardest things about being one of your daughters.

And then she said, I have been thinking about Ruth.

And I said, oh?

And she said, yes, and I have been wishing I had a faith because then I might believe that she and your father had gone to a better place. But I don’t. And now I’m going to bed.

Which she did. And I remembered someone once telling me that losing a parent is actually a double loss, because for a while, the other parent is lost to you too, at a time when you need them most. But that with any luck they will be back one day.

And I wondered if Mum would ever be back.

In the morning I went to the hospital and collected my father’s death certificate from a lady wearing a mask and blue disposable gloves. And then I went home and waited for the cavalry to arrive in her electric chariot.

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.

Number of days since lockdown: 66

Number of times I have thought about Dominic Cummings today: hardly any. Because he is not the story. Or at least, his trip up North and related dodgy excuses aren’t. Possibly his fomentation of discontent and anti-establishment feeling which led to the Brexit vote are. But we are supposed to have moved on from that.

Anyway, never mind him.

With hindsight, sharing a bed with my 88 year old mother might have been an act of loving kindness after the day she had yesterday, but it wasn’t exactly an aid to good sleep hygiene. While she gently snored, I lay awake for most of the night with a crick in my neck thinking about her and Dad.

When you get to my stage in life and both your parents are still alive, it is tempting to start thinking of them as immortal. Intellectually you know that one day one of them will die, and eventually the other one too. But emotionally you can’t quite believe this will ever happen. The longer they last, the easier it seems to be to indulge in such magical thinking.

And that was where I was when I started writing this diary. I thought that Mum and Dad would always be there, in cosy, old-fashioned Waylands Heath, the house crammed with familar knick-knacks, my father watching Countdown and my mother chuntering on about the neighbours.

No danger of that now, given their recent brushes with mortality. I realise that I have been living in a state of perpetual anxiety for the past seven weeks. I’m not sure I can keep it up.

As it got light, I made a promise to myself. I promised to try a lot harder simply to accept what life has thrown my way and to go with the flow a bit more. I want to appreciate this enforced time caring for my mother, because it is so precious. Even though so much of what is happening is desperately sad and worrying, I want to find a way create some good memories amongst the sadness. And I want to be generous and share the best bits with Lydia too, even if I am doing the lion’s share of the caring. Because she loves our parents just as much as I do and it isn’t her fault that she’s the youngest and still working full time. And I want to help us all face whatever is going to happen next to the love of our mother’s life, our beloved Dad.

So at 7am I went downstairs, shoved on a pair of trainers, took Harvey out briefly (that dog will literally faint if he ever gets a decent walk again), fed him and Mog and made tea and a plate of toast and Marmite for me and Mum.

Hers was strong English Breakfast with a dash of milk, mine was weak Early Grey. She sat up in bed and we munched away companionably, watching Breakfast TV. Dominic Cummings is gradually slipping out of the news, just as Boris Johnson and he must have hoped. It’s now all about Emily Maitlis who apparently said too much on Newsnight, and the new Track and Trace app, which isn’t the full monty but Matt Hancock still says it is our civic duty to lock ourselves away for 14 days should we get the call to do so.

I thought we were still in lockdown, but never mind.

Do they think we are mugs? Yes, probably. And are we? What do you think?

Then Mum had a nice bath and we chose some clothes to suit the warm weather and talked about what we planned to do today, which was not very much other than sitting in the garden doing crosswords and watching old episodes of Call the Midwife on my laptop.

Mog has become very attached to my mother. I am slightly worried she is going to get between the legs of her zimmer frame and cause a terrible accident, but Mum says not to shoo her away. She says she likes seeing her sitting on the garden wall watching over her like an owl. It makes her feel safe.

So that’s what we did. It was a little holiday from reality. We avoided the news for the rest of the day and we didn’t even watch the 5.00 briefing. Instead, we watered the tomatoes and admired my sweet peas and I made a jug of sangria using an old bottle of Beaujolais and some homemade lemonade. We even had crisps.

And then I got a call from the hospital.

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.

Number of days since lockdown: 65

Number of people who have visited my blog since I first started writing it: 1,028

Number of times a day I check the above: once or twice (but remember I am an unreliable narrator.)

I may have mentioned in the past that my sister Lydia can be quite annoying. She is one of those people who always knows best. And who is never backward in expressing an opinion. She is also usually right. And most irritating of all, she tends to reach the right conclusion much quicker than me.

So when she started saying on Saturday, the day that Mum left the hospice and came to stay with me, that we need to arrange for her to visit Dad in hospital, I thought that is all very well for you to say, Lydia, but they will never agree to it.

And all through the weekend, during which our WhatsApp messages became increasingly peppered with disgust at the sheer audacity of Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson taking us all for mugs, we talked about how Mum was doing and how sad it was that she kept asking to see Dad. And all I could do was think about all the things I had to do to look after her and the difficulties of getting her there.

But all of a sudden yesterday I came to the same conclusion as Lydia. Which is this. That Mum has had the virus, therefore she must at least have some immunity. And therefore a visit to Dad in hospital is not a highly risky thing for her to do. And that whilst there is a shortage of gowns and masks etc, what better use could be made of just one set of them so that our mother could spend just a few minutes with our father, possibly for the last time. And that if she doesn’t see him, she may never be able to accept that he has had a massive stroke and is unlikely to get better. And while seeing him like that will be very, very upsetting for her, not seeing him will be even worse.

And when I reached that conclusion, I didn’t feel cross with my sister for a change. I just felt cross with myself with not having realised all this sooner.

I don’t know what Lydia said to them at the hospital, or how many times she had to ring and threaten to go over people’s heads and not accept no for an answer. It may have helped that everyone working in the NHS must be feeling furious about the fact that so many people had missed meeting new grandchildren or holding the hands of dying loved ones because of lockdown, while the odious Cummings swanned around breaking the rules and making excuses that would be laughable if they weren’t so self-serving.

Anyway, at 3pm she rang me and said that we could go. She said that we were to get there at 6pm and that a nurse would meet us outside A and E.

So Mum and I discussed what she should wear, and she muttered about the state of her hair, and I tried to persuade her to have something to eat and she of course refused. And I helped her get into my car and we drove to the hospital and got there far too early. But eventually on the dot of 6pm, there was the nurse waiting outside A and E with a wheelchair. It was a bit like exchanging a prisoner on a bridge, except I didn’t get to take anyone in return. I will never forget seeing her being wheeled away, looking tiny but determined.

The nurse had said she would text me when it was time to collect Mum. So I parked the car – hospitals have plenty of parking spaces at the moment – and went for a little walk and thought about my parents and how my mother is lost without the slightly anxious but at the same time steadying presence of my father. And about him being all alone in that hospital.

And I cried for them both.

And then my phone beeped and I went back to A and E and there was my mother sitting in the wheelchair looking even smaller.

I helped her into the car and we drove home in silence. When we got in she said she thought she would go to bed. So I helped her upstairs and to get undressed and she got into bed and lay on her side facing away from me.

I said I’d go and make her a cup of tea. And she said, thank you Sadie.

I was going to message Brian and tell him not to come round after all, but in the end I forgot. So we sat in the garden and I told him about my day and he listened in that really intense, thoughtful way of his. And although I was desperate for him to hold me, we agreed that we were better than Dominic Cummings and that we needed to work out a way to see one another without breaking the lockdown rules. And that for now, sitting in the garden two metres apart would have to do.

And then he went home and I went to check on Mum and she was still just lying there wide awake. So I got onto the bed next to her and put my arms round her and stayed there all night.

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.

Number of days since lockdown: 64

Number of days since I became a 24/7 carer: 3

Number of times I’ve wondered if we are living in some kind of Kafka-esque version of The Truman Show: quite a few.

Ten things about the Dominic Cummings Debacle that I am still seething about:

1. He went home knowing he had been in contact with people who had tested positive for Covid 19 AND THEN WENT BACK TO WORK.
2. He went home again and then DECIDED TO DRIVE 260 MILES to another part of the country so he could avoid the media and/or get help with child care.
3. He thought his eyesight was affected so he decided to test it by taking his wife and child FOR A 60 MILE ROUND TRIP IN THE CAR.
4. He thought he was better so HE DROVE 260 MILES BACK TO LONDON AGAIN. Apparently he doesn’t know about working remotely.
5. He can’t remember when he discussed any of this with the PM.
6. He can’t remember whether he stopped for petrol. So not quite as tech-savvie as we have been led to believe, because as well as not knowing how to use Zoom, he hasn’t heard of internet banking.
7. HE HASN’T EVEN APOLOGISED FOR CAUSING ANGER AND DISTRESS ON AN UNPRECEDENTED SCALE.
8. He was allowed to hold a personal press conference in the garden of No 10, Downing Street. For which he turned up HALF AN HOUR LATE.
9. THE GOVERNMENT IS STILL DEFENDING HIM.
10. HE THINKS HE DID NOTHING WRONG.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

When I was still trying to stay married to Richard and the children were at their expensive private schools, we mixed in the kind of circles that include people like Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson. People who think they are better than other people. People who believe they are so clever and important that it is OK to make fun of the little people. People who get angry when questioned, because whatever they think or do must obviously be right. People who talk about themselves at great length but show no interest whatsoever in what you have to say. Who travel business class and put their badly-behaved children at the back of the plane in the cheap seats for the crew to look after. Who moan about expensive school fees but condemn people who send their children to state schools for being cheapskates who don’t care about their education. Who work in family businesses and inherit family properties and have options should they need a country bolthole and who consider people without such advantages to be no-hopers. And who simply have no idea what it’s like to be worried about having enough money to pay the rent or feed the baby or keep the loan sharks from the door.

And who am I to judge? I used to go along with all this. Sometimes I even joined in. I was proud of Charlotte’s excellent results and her brilliant career. I might even have crowed about them to friends whose children hadn’t done so well. I was embarrassed when Toby dropped out of the Royal College of Music because his band had got a recording contract – short-lived, as it turned out – so I kept quiet about that. And I did nothing to stop Richard when he employed a clever lawyer at vast expense to get him off his latest drink-driving offence and avoid a lengthy ban. We were just a provincial, lower-key version of the elitism and lack of humility that has been on display all weekend.

I cringe when I think about it.

Not that I have much time for cringing. Looking after an elderly person who is recovering from a fractured hip and Covid-19 and who is also my mother is a full-time job. By rights, there should be 3 of us here working shifts. But there is just me, and I am only just keeping my head above water. My mother watches a TV quiz show every afternoon called Tenable. This situation is only tenable in the short-term.

The hardest part is that she keeps asking to go and visit Dad. I don’t know if she understands how ill he is. I certainly don’t think she appreciates the lockdown rules, even though she watches the TV news in between all the quiz shows. It is hard to comprehend the cruelty of it, that an elderly woman who nearly died from the virus and has an uncertain future is not allowed to visit her husband who she has been married to for over 60 years, has had a massive stroke and lying semi-conscious in hospital being looked after by people he doesn’t know. And who may die any day.

I decide to get Lydia onto the case. She is extremely busy working out how to open her school to more pupils. But she says she will call the hospital and make special pleading for Mum to visit Dad, given she is now probably immune from the virus and therefore hopefully not a risk to herself or anyone else. If anyone can persuade them, Lydia can.

And Lydia and I agree we will only take her if we can do so without putting other people at risk, even though it is heartbreaking to listen to her pleading to see him.

To all those people thinking about breaking the lockdown rules because Dominic Cummings did, please don’t. We are better than him and his privileged, out-of-touch, I’m-alright-jack-pull-the-ladder-up ilk. Most of us are are in this together. Cummings and the odious man he helped to inveigle us to become our Prime Minister are not.

And yes, I am meant to be seeing Brian tonight. If I can stay awake that long.

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.

Number of days since lockdown: 63

Number of days since I became a 24/7 carer: 2

Number of times I’ve felt like screaming “You lying, privileged bastards” at Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson: how many do you think?

I was up half of Friday night putting the finishing touches to my preparations for Mum’s arrival on Saturday. I wanted everything to be perfect, even though, with my mother, that would be impossible. She will either complain that I haven’t done enough or that I have gone way over the top and that she hates a fuss. We specialise in the double-bind in our family.

Plus Brian said he was going to be in touch on Saturday. Being a carer is going to make things a bit more complicated on that front, but love will find a way. Or so I hope.

I got up really early on Saturday and took Harvey out for his walk. I was back in the house for one final round of wiping surfaces and plumping up cushions before it was time to set off to collect Mum, when my phone pinged. I leaped across the kitchen to answer it, feeling all girlish and thrilled, only to find a text from my ex-husband saying he was at the side gate and to please let him in as he needed to talk to me urgently.

He sat down at the garden table and said what about a coffee, Sades, and I said Richard, I’ve only got ten minutes before I need to leave to collect my mother, and he said never mind that, did you know about our daughter? And I said what, and he said, did you know that she’s now batting for the other side, and I said for God’s sake, do you live in the 19th century, she is 32 and who she goes out with is up to her.

And then it all descended into a stupid argument when he accused me of indoctrinating his children and I said he was a fascist. And then we seamlessly got onto the subject of Dominic Cummings and I said he should resign and Richard said he was only trying to make sure his child was alright, and I said tell that to the single parent who looked after their children alone in a tiny flat while ill with the virus because they were following the quarantine rules. Or the mother and father whose 13 year old son was dying in ITU and they weren’t allowed to be with him or even to attend his funeral. And he said don’t be so dramatic, Sadie.

So I said Cummings is like one of those parents who park their SUV on the zigzag lines outside schools because they think the safety of their own child is more important the safety of everyone else’s and Boris Johnson is like a headteacher who says it is OK for one parent to break the rules because they are a personal friend. And he said Did you read that in the Guardian, Sadie? And I threw my coffee at him and the coffee went all over him in a massive arc and the cup hit him on the head and cut him over his left eye.

So I ended up having to ring Constance at the hospice to say I would be late, before going in search of plasters and apologising for my violent outburst.

To be fair to Richard, he never holds a grudge. He tried to grope me while I was cleaning his cut which made me want to hit him again, and then he said, I’ve left her, Sadie. And I said who, and he said Karina.

Karina is his latest partner, or is it wife? I can’t keep up. Anyway, it turns out that, surprise surprise, he has been shagging someone at the office and Karina found an incriminating text and threw him out and he has been sleeping in his car for the past three days and now is in desperate need of a shower and somewhere to stay.

I said why not go to a hotel and he said insufficient funds, old girl. And I nearly cracked and said OK, just for one night. And then I remembered all the times he has let me and the children and his subsequent wives and girlfriends down, plus the lockdown rules and what it would look like to the neighbours and that my Mum would also be there and the small matter of Brian. But mainly his support for Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson. And I said no, Richard, you will have to make other arrangements.

After a bit of chuntering, he left and I drove to the hospice and collected Mum.

I will be honest, being a full time carer is not going to be easy. Although at least it took my mind off Rishi Sunak’s fall from grace, when he followed orders on Friday night and tweeted support for the odious Cummings. Sorry Rishi, but it’s over. You are a puppet after all.

Sunday morning:

7 am Take Mum cup of tea. Explain (again) why we can’t go and see Dad today. Empty dishwasher.

7.30 am Take dog for very quick walk.

8 am Deliver Mum’s breakfast in bed. Accept admonishment for excess number of Weetabix (She only wanted one and I gave her one and a half.)

8.30 am Help Mum to have bath and get dressed. Make bed, tidy her room and bathroom. Put on load of washing.

9.30 am Help her downstairs. Settle her into least uncomfortable chair in sitting room. Deliver coffee, one digestive biscuit and newspaper. Accept admonishment that it is the Observer rather than the Sunday Times.

10.00am Sweep kitchen floor, wipe down surfaces, load dishwasher. Remember I haven’t had breakfast yet. Make toast, about to start eating it standing up, respond to urgent call from sitting room that she needs the loo, offer assistance, help her back to sitting room, return to kitchen to find cat licking butter off toast.

A long day. But my mother and I are at least in agreement that Boris Johnson needs to sack the odious Cummings or he will turn all the attention to his own lack of leadership skills. Which he then does very successfully at the 5pm press conference. For someone who’s main asset is meant to be communication, it is a PR disaster of monumental proportions. The country is full of fury, with Tory MPs, bishops and people who have missed the funerals of loved ones lining up to express their disgust.

And the wonderful Sir Keir Starmer plays a blinder in not mentioning Cummings, but waiting for the PM to fall into the trap of supporting his man just as even more incriminating evidence starts to appear. He has asked for a cabinet secretary led enquiry. Which given that Cummings has been trying to oust the cabinet secretary has a nice symmetry to it.

In other news, I had a lovely long WhatsApp chat with Brian on Saturday night after I had settled Mum into bed. He seems to have resolved all the stuff about Stella and feels that things are as good as they can between him and her parents. And he now feels he can concentrate on his own life. We are going to try a late night tryst in the garden/summerhouse tomorrow night, ie Tuesday, after Mum has gone to bed.

I feel like a teenager. What could possibly go wrong?

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