I was awake this morning when the newspaper was delivered at around 3:30am It's a noise I have become very accustomed to: a car slows down, throws it out the window, and it hits the front yard with a thump. I wanted to go outside and get it this morning because there was an article I wanted to read, but it was raining, so I thought I would wait until things cleared up. At about 4:00 a.m., the rain had stopped, so I quietly opened the front door and went outside. The paper wasn't in the spot it usually lands, but I kept looking.
I checked everywhere, but it just wasn't there. I thought that was a bit strange, but I just went inside and did a few things before I attempted to sleep.
When I woke up in the afternoon, the first thing Mum said to me was that the newspaper thief was back. Then it hit me instantly. The person who used to steal our newspapers every morning when we lived one street over was now aware of the presence of a morning paper at our new home.
That actually made me feel a little bit uneasy. I was outside in the dark at around 4:00am, and I wondered what would have happened if I had bumped into the newspaper thief. I know it's just a newspaper, but it's not their property, and if they are willing to steal that, what else might they be willing to do? I shuddered at the thought.
When we lived a street over, we were in conversation with the newsagency all the time about the fact our papers went missing most mornings, and there was not a lot they could do about it. They advised us that it wasn't something the police would take seriously, nor was there a lot that they could do.
They did say that one day, someone told them they saw a woman walking down Kensington Road near our house holding a rolled-up paper early in the morning, but again, what can you do?
It's funny, though; I get really frightened being in the house overnight by myself. I'm okay in a unit where there are only one or two entries, but in this bigger house, my mind plays tricks on me, and it makes the ability to go to sleep even harder. Mum is going to London at the end of the year to stay with my brother and his family, and she will be gone a few months. I don't know how I am going to cope. She went there a few years ago for three months, and I was fine. I was preoccupied with making 1,000 paper cranes, and I challenged myself to listen to as many audiobooks as I possibly could while I made the cranes.
I'm going to have to set myself a number of new challenges this time when she's gone because I have gotten so much worse the older I've gotten. The revival of the newspaper thief has not helped.
Today three bunches of flowers were sent to us in sympathy for Dad. I've posted below some pictures of the flowers we currently have at our house. In the top photo, you can see a pink and purple arrangement, and they are my favourite ones from Blooms on the Parade. It was the florist herself who sent them to Mum, which I thought was very nice.
Mum's done a lot of business with her in the past, and they have developed a friendship.
Mum has received over 200 messages on her phone about my Dad. That just goes to show how many lives he touched. He was 95 years old and lived a long, good life. It’s just the last ten years or so that weren’t so great. But they say dementia isn’t so bad for the people with it; it’s just difficult for the family to see them like that. And it was difficult to see Dad like that.
