I arrived at my parents' house at about 8 am because both cats need to see the vet this morning. Tippi has bald patches and irritation on her skin, Fluffy needs to lose her thick winter coat and get naked for another hot el nino summer. Both problems are caused by absent-minded neglect. Tippi, the vet surmises, has been neurotically scratching and licking at herself, probably an over-reaction to fleas. I must admit I've forgotten to keep up her flea treatment. Fluffy, on the other hand, could probably survive a summer in her full coat, but it is the knotting of the fur that comes with not being brushed every day that makes her annual trim a necessity.

I'll be here all day, since it doesn't pay to drive over twice in one day. Here's a few snapshots...

I notice dad eating his Meals on Wheels roast beef with a spoon.

'Turning into a bit of a peasant, aren't you dad - eating your lunch with a spoon.'

'I always was a bit of a peasant,' he says. 'I was a peasant in the air force and I'm a peasant now.'

Mum stops eating and says:

'I need my biscuit.' From her gesture I make a guess and suppose she means she needs her glasses. She rises from the table and returns a couple of minutes later wearing them.

Mum throws something onto the lawn.

'What was that?' I ask.

'Just a tip tap.'

'Just a tip tap?'

'Just a bit of milk,' she says. 'Not milk.'

I frown, unable to comprehend.

'Just bits...'

bits of bread, I suppose.

Mum stands in the middle of the lounge looking as if she has forgotten what she was doing.

'Why don't you sit down and relax,' says dad. 'You don't seem able to relax. I can just relax. You seem to get all...'

'Hmm?' says mum, vaguely aware that there is something critical in what dad says. I don't see her expression, but I hear dad say:

'Well, I'm only trying to help.'

We are sailing close to an argument. A minute later dad is trying to explain to mum that the things on the table belong to me. She couldn't care less, but until she gives the magic response, or whatever it is that dad is after, he will keep explaining it to her. Voices are being raised. I go into the room and say:

'I thought an argument was just about to happen, so I came in here to make sure it doesn't.' Mum laughs but dad starts on about how he was trying to explain to mum...etc.

He asks me for about the sixth or seventh time when I am going back to the vet's to pick Fluffy up. I suggest he uses his incredible powers of relaxation and just leave it to me.

Later, mum and dad start a strange conversation in which both seem to be telling vague stories from the past. Mum keeps mentioning a woman, and every time she does dad says 'who?'

'The mother!' says mum.

'Oh, now I understand. But you were saying "the woman".'

'Yes, well it's all along.'

'We've been married for forty years,' says dad, seriously underestimating but not, as it appears, changing the subject.

'Yes.'

'And Mike is one of our children.'

'Oh, yes. That is.'

'And I'm your husband.'

'Well. The mother. It's that, and your toes...and you sit and don't do, don't do. And all the time you...and the rest of it.'

I suddenly realise they are talking only about themselves. What mum is trying to say is that she is, or behaves like, the mother, but dad doesn't behave like a father or a husband. He doesn't participate in their home or marriage or the family. I can hear it quite clearly now. I'm typing furiously in the bedroom, listening through the open doorway, trying to keep up. I'll sub-edit myself later on.

'So that's the situation, love,' says dad, seemingly under the impression that he has been telling mum how it is rather than the other way around. She's gone quiet again, as if she's had her say and nothing else needs to be said.

'Tomorrow...Day Care!' announces dad. He's so excited about it. He's been talking about it all day, actually. Each week he's been getting there earlier. He now turns up about an hour early. I don't know what the staff do with him while they're getting ready. He told me earlier that they have paired him up with the American man - this is the guy who was obsessed about a post when I met him (I've since joked that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder).

Spend a day with dad and you realise how incessantly he talks. It is not just the repetition that irks, it is the asking of questions and the talking over your answers, then asking you to repeat what you said. It is the constant noise without content. I realise what mum is putting up with every day.

Well, Tippi seems quite perky and friendly after her trip to the vet, who gave her a steroid injection to calm her down. Fluffy, as is to be expected, is very cranky about the whole thing and is sulking at the bottom of the garden. I've given both cats a flea treatment (remind me to do this again on 4th November), and am wondering whether I shall try to give Fluffy her (rather large) anti-biotic pills over the next six days. It will entail a lot of driving, and a lot of feline struggling. I think maybe not.