Sunday, July 24, 2005

Things are improving...

at the home for the Definitely Confused Elderly...
Since my last turn on the rota, a new management team has taken over and when I arrived for the service this evening, tea was nearly cleared away, and my congregation were more or less collected in the same part of the dining room, so that I could actually begin to relate to some of them, without turning my back on others. What's more, when one lady was very loudly distressed (apparently she is on diazapan, and is hallucinating in every direction...so I don't need to alert the police instantly about the armed gunman she thought she encountered at breakfast) a member of staff actually bothered to come and talk to me about her situation, and check that I was willing and able to cope with her while at the same time taking the service and playing the piano for everyone else.
So, all in all, this evening's session on St James the Great was a vast improvement on its predecessors. Only at one point did the past reassert itself...I was talking to the distressed lady just before I left...she seized me in a vice-like grip and whispered, with great intensity,
"But you're wearing green, and I ordered navy"

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, that's just hilarious.
I'll be thinking of you tomorrow and hope the funeral goes as well as it can.

Caroline said...

are you sure you didn't mean, as i first read it...'defiantly confused' elderly?

Kathryn said...

lol
Caroline,you're absolutely right. A good proportion of them are indeed defiantly confused...and a bit of defiance improves the mix no end!