Weather I will or weather I won't.

.....rain, rain, rain....................

End of the summer holidays and it rained on and off for two days. Hot, humid rainy. Would stop for 5 minutes and then another downpour.
Luckily we were just home watching TV and had no plans outside. But sad for all the people trying to camp with kids. Trains were derailed in mudslides, villagers killed in parts of Japan. Grim weather.

Okaasan hardly connects to the weather.
Beyond her 24/7 vision of the world from the carpet in front of the TV, she sits and watches TV programs about mudslides and calamity, but doesn't connect it to what may be happening outside in the street here.
When you can hear rain crashing down against the window etc, she'll ask several times if the fan is switched on, and then repeat and repeat that question. Our answers about rain, don't lodge in her mind.

So at 5.30 pm on Saturday she decides to go for a walk. Ignores advice that it may rain any minute, ignores/forgets advice about an umbrella...and sets off.
5 minutes later the skies are streaming down again.
We are not sure if she actually TOOK an umbrella, so use the GPS to track her to the local Macdonalds. Then phone to check, then go in the car to pick her up and bring her safely home.

And again on Sunday. This time she took the umbrella, and came home in another downpour.

At least it is only rain. Winter and the snow and icy roads are harder.
One day we'll have to do locks on the front door, I think.

* Wrapping up stuff - Okaasan should work as one of Santa's helpers, she LOVES wrapping stuff up in old newspapers. Usually food that she doesn't want to eat. But yesterday a dirty plate lunchtime was wrapped in newspaper and placed on the carpet by the sofa.....have to check everyday to see what is wrapped up here and there.

* Went to see Quartet, the Dustin Hoffman-directed film about a retirement home for singers. Second time for me. First time for a friend. Pauline Collins' character Sissie and her dementia is spot on - the repeated little phrases, the checking, the fierce identification of "mine" with her possessions, the running around, the change of expression. I wonder if the actress has someone with dementia in her family?

YES! Her own mother...Internet search found me this in an interview with Collins about the role:

Collins, best known for her award winning performance in the 1989 feature Shirley Valentine, once again brings a lovable character to the silver screen with her portrayal of Cecily “Cissy” Robson, a retired mezzo singer “just beginning to tip-toe down the dementia road.”

It was a somewhat personal role for Collins, whose mother also suffered from the illness.

“(When I got the role) first of all I thought of my mum, who had it, and then I thought how my mum was very joyful, all the way through, and maintained her sense of humour ... and then she dipped into another world. So I wanted that for Cissy,” Collins says.

“I wanted the way that she conceals her dementia a lot, because I think a lot of people do that, especially in the early stages, or don’t readily admit that they might have it. Because we’ve all done things where we’ve left our glasses and don’t know where they are. So I wanted that element that everyone can recognise in themselves. And also, the sweetness of her character which was still there.”