Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to visit my sister in hospital this evening (and it had absolutely nothing to do the with The General Election). Earlier Geoff had suggested on the phone that we should leave visiting until tomorrow but, at about six o’clock, while I was finishing off the painting for Mary, I thought of my own experiences of being in hospital. I remembered how grateful and loved I had felt when dear friends and family came to see me, even when I was terribly sick (maybe even more so then because only people who love you want to be around you when you’re in such a state).

“I’m going to see Mary for a short visit,” I told Chris.

“Is that wise Darling?” Chris asked.

“I think I know my sister better than anyone else and I’m sure she will feel better knowing that we made the effort, if only for a few minutes,” I assured my husband. “I’ll phone Mum and see if she wants to come…”

To tell the truth, even the beginning of our outing didn’t go well… Mum was in a flap when we picked her up outside her house.

“I was changing for bed when you called,” she said, “I hadn’t even had my banana sandwich for tea yet and then I couldn’t find my blue badge for parking!”

“Don’t worry about that Mum,” I assuaged.

“We can pay for parking,” agreed Chris.

“But that’s not the point – where can my card be? If only people would be like you Chris and give it back to me at the end of a trip out,” Mum whimpered.

I found the parking card in the handy box between the front seats – Chris had forgotten to return it to my mum last Saturday – and my dear old mum stopped hyperventilating and crying, and calmed down. We made it to the hospital with half an hour to spare before the end of visiting hours, and Chris managed to park in the disabled car park close to the entrance.

The middle part of our adventure – the visit – didn’t go too well either… Mum disliked the floor surface, which had an adverse effect on the soles of her shoes, and she was not expecting the half kilometre walk to the ward. Mary was in E bay on Durbin Ward but her reserve wasn’t met – a curtain surrounded her bed and we heard her moaning:

“Don’t let my mother and sister see me being sick… tell them to go.”

Mum and I wanted to go in and soothe her forehead and hold her hand but we stayed outside.

“I love you,” Mary managed.

“We love you,” we walked away.

Nobody told us to go.

“At least she knows we love her,” we all agreed back in the car.

On the way home we tried to be normal and cheerful. We talked about the Election and the likelihood (or not) of Nigel Farage, the leader of the UKIP Party, becoming Prime Minister; and we discussed the local election and the Polling station; and towards the end of our journey, having discussed our dinner plans (banana sandwich for Mum and pumpkin soup for Chris and me), Mum said:

“I’m so glad that you benefit from those ‘UKIP’ tablets I gave you, Sally.”

“Thank you Mum, they’re really good for my eyes – I can feel the difference – but they aren’t called ‘UKIP’ tablets… they are called ‘Eye-Caps’!

“I thought you must have been talking about sleeping tablets!” said Chris.