h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, as day one goes this has been pretty normal for me in that it's been a bad day.

Woke up today and went to work feeling full of the joys of .... well autumn really. It was cold but the sun was shining. Work was still there so I went in and got on with it.

By 11.00am it was clear that it was not going to be a good day.

Phoned elderly relative to find she'd had no breakfast - not because her carers hadn't arrived but because they had, they left her breakfast but she was too weak to eat it herself. Phoned her son and told him to get down to her and see that she was fed while I dealt with the rest of the problem. Anyway, she is now to have more carers come in for breakfast and lunch - to feed her and the family will take up the teatime call. Death isn't pretty and it isn't easy but her sons aren't dealing with the necessary and that leaves me and another family female making the decisions and doing the work.

Picked daughter up from her sleepover/halloween party thingy at lunchtime and she was upset. It transpires that the young lad I'd heard about on the news this morning, killed by a hit and run driver while walking home from a halloween party, was a friend of hers. Daughter knew both boys through a family member and they'd been to a few parties in the same crowd. The boys were walking home when he was hit, the other boy wasn't injured. He was just 17.

I seriously hope tomorrow will be uneventful.

Oh Fizzy. I'm sorry to hear all this. I wish there was something useful I could say, but there isn't, so I'm left with the conventional platitudes.

Death at 17 is appallingly cruel. All that potential lost, all that exuberance. Death late in life is just as cruel, with a diminishing quality of life on the way to the end. Once upon a time I used to wonder which I'd choose if I were to be given a choice. How I wish tehre were a viable third way... But I digress badly.

Your daughter has my deepest sympathy. This will be awfully confronting for her - and I'm sorry for stating the obvious. (Been there..)

That is a pretty terrible day.

for your daughter's friend and anther one for your relative.

Sheesh Fizzy, here's hoping for better days.

Very sorry to hear this.

Whew, that really takes the wind out of your sails, doesn't it?

I feel like listening to "November Rain" and having a good cry. That song always makes me cry - and you deserve a good mope. If I could, I'd send some real flowers and a huge teddy bear to cuddle. But maybe the song will help.

My goodness, likkul ...

I couldn't imagine having a day like that....

My best wishes to you and your family...

Wow, thank you all for the lovely love.

You've rightly cheered me up.

I adore GnR November Rain. Saw them at Slane many, many moons ago.

Daughter's not too bad at the moment - I can remember when I was 16 the first member of my circle of friends died. It's strange but at that age we're all sort of used to old, old people passing and I can remember the shock when someone my own age just died in their sleep. I think it sort of teaches us about our own mortality. I think daughter now sees what a fragile thread our lives hang by.

Anyway, I prepared 'dinner' for elderly relative tonight and she really enjoyed it. We're in the process of trying to encourage her to take up the offer of a bed in the Hospice .... but she's a game old bird and not willing to give up her home even with the knowledge that she only has a very short time left. We really need a stubborn old mule smiley.

I've seen fill in for mule and nag. Sorry to hear about your situation with your relative. I'm looking after elderly parents and tho my parents are OK, I know a lot of people in your same boat from my support group. My mother is very stubborn too.

Ditto. I've been tied up the past 5 months providing in home care for my Mom after her third heart attack, second stroke and a third carotid bypass operation. Simply no one else about to do it. She's still strongly resisting a permanent move to a board and care facility and thankfully, at this point no longer immediately needs it.

I'm wondering what I'm going to do when I come to a pass like that. My best Gypsy fortune teller tells me I'll be around to my middle 90s and is probably right about that. Something to plan for.