I called Greg this evening and listened to his pieced-together account of events at mum and dad's yesterday:

Dad had lost the TV remote control once again, and began looking for it in the sideboard. Due to bad eyesight he had knelt on the floor and started to rummage around in the drawers, paying little regard to the tidiness of his work. Mum, who lays the table cloths quite neatly and carefully in these drawers, took offence, and kicked dad. She then hit him around the face, which is how his glasses got broken. One of the metal parts of the glasses scratched his nose.

When Greg spoke to mum he told her she must not hit dad, that it was against the law, but she hotly denied any part in the story. He also impressed upon dad the benefits of not telling the authorities about this - it could be a reason for withdrawal of services.

This morning Regan took dad to the optometrist who found a frame that fitted dad's lenses. Getting home, they were five minutes too late for meals on wheels, who had been unable to persuade mum to let them in, and had retreated, taking both the lunches with them. Earlier, Regan had called them and explained the situation, but their rules say that they must not leave food outside.

Patrice, the nurse, turned up soon afterwards and complained that she ought to be notified if family are going to be present at the house, as this could save a wasted trip. Regan had tried to call all the services she could remember, including the day care centre, but had omitted to call the nurses. Perhaps this proves that you can't please all of the people all of the time.

Last night I was enjoying the ability to walk once more, and had planned to walk into my office today. However, I awoke with a spinning head and nausea, and vomited yellow bile into the toilet several times. Each time I tried to get back to bed my head started spinning again, so I rolled my exercise mat out on the toilet floor and lay there for about 90 minutes. At about lunch time I returned to bed and slept until 6:30 pm. I don't know what was wrong with me, but I feel quite a bit better now.

Things seem grim. Parts of Sydney are under a haze of bushfire smoke. Greg witnessed a murder in the alley behind his offices this afternoon. Stop the world, I want to get off!