Judging by the content of my last few conversations with dad this afternoon, the visit to the retirement village did not go well today.

Dad has somehow got the idea that mum is in a bad way and about to die. He also thinks she is not going to be coming out of the home alive. Until today, despite everything we have been telling him, he has expected mum to be treated and sent home more or less immediately. I was pretty surprised and disappointed to hear this death stuff from him; it is the worse than the various results I'd imagined. Thank god that mum was not sufficiently upset about the visit to demand to be taken home.

I asked dad where he had got the idea that mum was about to die. As usual, it was hard to get a clear answer to a simple question ('who told you that?'). However, he did tell me at one time that a doctor had told him and later that Rachel had. He then went on to report that Rachel had been raising her voice, hitting a piece of paper and had left angry about something; so, whatever happened, clearly the day had not gone well. There was no point trying to do a post mortem on it however, so I simply did what I thought ought to be done to minimise further damage - called Greg and warned him.

Greg is due to visit dad tomorrow, so I told him what to expect. I suggested that he get a clear and simple form of words prepared to repeat ad nauseam to dad. I suggested, to be specific, 'Mum's got years ahead of her yet dad,' with the accent on 'years', and 'no-one's talking about mum dying.'

God knows how long this is going to go on. Not long, I hope.