Settling in to a routine

Okaasan well - calm and happy in her life.
We visited yesterday - walking round the corridors with the walking frame, snacks and drinks in her room, family TV time, arm flapping exercises...chat.

"You work as a ski instructor??" she quizzed Dear Son. I guess it IS a year since she has seen him coming home with skis and boots in the kitchen...the reality of his working life. So we did all the "rich Chinese visitors - teaching in English - season - Hokkaido snow business boom" conversations...that are all routine.

I washed one of her rose-pattern smocks the other day at home and discovered a train ticket and a receipt in the pocket. 
2016...September...she went downtown with this subway ticket...but then forgot she had bought it and probably confused the subway staff by producing her Elderly Travel Pass at the other end. And then she went to her favorite coffee shop at 4.58 pm and bought a matcha tea drink and a chestnut puree cake.

The old routines. Two years ago she was doing that alone.

Now she is mainly in a wheechair. The TV. Exercising. Waving and even TALKING a little to "friends" in the care home...and the staff. A few months ago she always looked a little suspicious and unfriendly when we turned her chair round from the communal TV and wheeled her out of the shared living room - as if she was unaware of all the other people in the room behind her and wondered who they were.

Now she waves and smiles at them. And they at us.

It's all great.