I had a long phone conversation with Greg this afternoon. He had just been to see mum and dad, and the visit had not gone well.

Yesterday dad called both Greg and I to say that the electricity had cut off. It hadn't, at least not literally. One of the circuit breakers had cut out, presumably because mum and dad had been trying to run too many appliances at once. The house probably needs an electrical upgrade, but that's another story.

Greg fixed the problem and set about resetting the computer and alarm clock radio. To warm the house, Greg prefers to use the airconditioner rather than the gas heater. He therefore needed to find its remote control - the new one that he had recently bought to replace the old one that has disappeared (ie, has been hidden in a strange place). The remote control was eventually tracked down to a drawer in the sideboard. At this point, something must have gone wrong because he said that when he found it mum got angry at him, and several times feinted to throw her cup of tea over him.

Hearing this, my mind jumped to several possible explanations:

  1. Greg had made some offhand comment that mum resented
  2. Dad had done the same
  3. Mum felt guilty and, therefore, blamed for the hiding of the remote control
  4. Greg had let his irritation show, and mum had interpreted it as being unfairly directed at her
Whatever the explanation, Greg clearly did not relish being included on mum's hit-list. It soured his visit, which had included hot pies for lunch and a few other fixes around the house. He left pretty soon afterwards and called me from his car.

Greg cited the nurse who had complained of being hit by mum, and told me that dad was looking pretty miserable; and clearly mum isn't in the best of moods. He said he thought we were nearing the end of the road. He'd talked to dad about moving to a home, and said he seemed very receptive to it, as if any change would be a good change. We seem to be shifting slowly towards a decision on this. I pointed out, being devil's advocate, that there were several substantial disadvantages to the move. To wit:
  1. mum may be put on tranquillisers
  2. mum may shrink further into her shell, since social situations seem to threaten her these days
  3. loss of personal space may cause mum to lock dad out of her room
  4. sudden loss of so many belongings may distress them both
I guess none of this really helped. But we did at least agree that we need to have another purge through the house - getting rid of things that are neither used nor needed, and simplifying the entire visual environment - perhaps getting another twelve months habitation out of it before it becomes too confusing.

I suppose it is just a matter of agreeing when to do this.

PS: Another tree-lopper visited yesterday, and told dad he needed to get his trees pruned. He is now preoccupied with this, but at least he didn't give the guy the job. He called both Greg and I and suggested we do it ourselves. I wish these people would leave them alone.