Lots of Love Virginia

1 a.m.: I was all snuggled up in my bed when I heard an almighty THUMP below decks. I bolted down the stairs (in such a State of Emergency Response I went bra-less, I never go sans brassiere. Even in our University residence night time fire drills I would be one of the last to emerge due to prolonged and frantic searching for discarded bra under a mound of clothing on floor and then the tiresome wrestling of majestic mammaries into said bra all while in sleep-addled state. It was my view that I would rather burn to death than have hunky firemen catch sight of my breasts hanging low!) Anyway back to the present, I bolted down the staircase clutching at my undulating chest whilst calling out frantically for Eileen. Midway down the hall I noticed that her door was slightly ajar and through the gap I could make out a horizontal wrinkled buttock (singular, as I could only see one buttock at this stage). I also heard a muffled, "I've fallen."

I poked my head round the slightly ajar door to find Eileen lying across the floor like a diver poised to jump with both hands stretched above her head. Her two hands were sticking out of her pink frilly nightdress that was stuck over her head, pinioning her arms above her head leaving her naked bottom directly opposite the draughty door. The nightdress repeated that it, "had fallen".

We managed to extricate Eileen from her nightdress and set her into bed, luckily no injuries.

As I lay in bed listening for any further bumps in the night I recalled my first ever care assignment with “Old” (not the most original nickname, I was new to the G.A.P.E game):

Old was a demented octogenarian with a benign tumour on the brain that affected her balance. Like Eileen she used a Zimmer frame and like Eileen she went down faster than cheap tequila in a student bar and almost as frequently. Old, being rather batty, enjoyed nocturnal adventures like pulling off her plasters and sticking them to the wall or hiding her hearing aid in her shoe. As a consequence I used to lie in bed listening with a cautious ear to the clunk, shuffle, clunk, shuffle, clunk of her zimmering progress to and from the loo.

One night I heard a bit of a kafuffle in the bathroom, and arrived downstairs (having spent a moment or two brassiering self) in time to catch sight of the old girl trundling back to her bed moving at pace enough to cause her floral nightgown to flap behind her. Evidently unscathed and eager for bed.

The following morning as I was cleaning her bathroom I spied a broken glass next to the toilet. Perched on top of the jagged glass was one of Old’s recent Birthday cards. I opened the card to find a spidery almost illegible note scribbled alongside the Birthday well wishes it read:

Dear all,
W
a w
r
n a r
ing ni
n
g
B
Ro
Ken glass. S harp

Lots of Love
V
irg
i nia


I remember thinking how very responsible she was; warning ALL the toilet users (she was the only) that A) broken glass was present and B) yes, it was sharp. But the kicker for me was the way she rounded off her warning of imminent danger with such an affectionate leaving. I mean you don’t often see etiquette like that these days.

But that evening did invoke a sense of paranoia in me I thought I might wake to find Old had put her shoes in the toaster, but thought to write a note about it on a piece of loo paper. It would read something along the lines of “dear Mr Fireman, Danger shoe on fire, hot. Hot! Lots of love ...V.”

That's the thing with these geriatrics you just never know what the next night has in store...