We drove within about 7 miles of my folks house yesterday late afternoon, had I known that my dad had had a fall that morning whilst taking a cup of tea up to his wife, my Mum, then we probably would have popped in to see how he was and organise a trip to the hospital. He’d fallen down the stairs, although no one apart from him will ever know how far and from where. He seems fine from what I could gather from a half deaf Mum and a Dad who “doesn’t like to make a fuss” and who also has trouble speaking due to a stroke 20 years ago. My Dad can’t feel his limbs

“They are, to a certain extent, Numb” he says in his broken stroke babble, but he’s ok to drive, this feels like its all been said before, and I definately have so regular readers please turn off now or go and read some blog about lifestyle hacks and cheap gift ideas. I’ll give you some advice a cheap gift is so obvious to spot as is a last minute gift. Be prepared people, which is exactly what my folks are not, heading into their old age. Should someone fall down the stairs as has happened just now, the shit is, as we speak, being lined up along the wall and the fans are in transit ready to sit in front of the wall and all of them to be turned on at once.

So we’ll see where we are this time tomorrow, will Dad have broken bones? Or will he be bruised or somewhere in between? I’d love to have them closer to me but 10 years of trying has yielded nothing positive to report, in fact even if the kitchen taps were spewing out radioactive MAGNOX reactor sludge they’d fill the kettle up from the bath and dry wash with perfumed baby wipes, which would give the house a peculiar musty neonatal aroma.

So not to claim the sympathy card, or ask for any it seems the next few years of my life will be spent trying to straddle two households either side of Birmingham, the combined age of the olds way out performing the age of my whole family including the dog (possibly even counting the dog years!) So along we go, with a Ho Ho Ho, and let’s see what sort of downgraded shitstorm we find our way into.