Step problems...

Okaasan's step climbing ability has taken a step back.
We only realized how much last night.
We had swept her away in the car from her favorite, late-afternoon MacDonald's coffee-stop to a local soba restaurant for a family dinner and so all came home together...actually for the first time in ages.

Poor Okaasan had REAL problems climbing the two steps to the front door.
"It's dangerous, all these stones! I fell down here!" she said, and asked Yujiro to give her a hand to help her up the steps.
Our eyes met. More than a bit of a surprise.
Okaasan has never been great with steps and stairs, she kind of hops up them and uses a rail for stairs if there is one.
But getting up these two steps onto the cement area by the front door was REALLY challenging for her.
Now I can completly see how she fell down here a few weeks ago, hitting her face and hip on the cement.

Last autumn she could do it better than this. And during winter the snow level reduced the height of the steps. Now all the snow has melted and it's quite a jump. The stones on the ground aren't particularly dangerous - she is just blaming a side issue for her inability - but the steps are very hard for her....we didn't notice that there's been a decline in her physical ability.

Luckily Yujiro's kitten-proof gate seems to be working. Now he can turn his energies to Okaasan and the steps....