Respond to comment

Cutlery ! I dread that word ! My mother bought some white plastic handled cutlery back in the 80s or so, and over the years the plastic broke, and the metal part of the knife fork or spoon thrown away or relegated to the shed . But since My Dad died, Mum noticed, as if for the first time , there were only some of the set left, and began suspecting the Carers of stealing it. There is some reason for her thinking this , because when she was a child back in the 30s in a very poor area of Lancashire and they had a maid in to help , the maids occasionally stole items . My Grandmother turned a blind eye because she knew the maids were so poor . However the whole thing has escalated over the last 2 or 3 years when Mum started hiding cutlery . First she hid her "best" set , and gradually not only other cutlery , but all kitchen tools : wooden spoons, sharp knives, whisks etc so that it became impossible to prepare a meal when i went over to visit. I did try buying a cheap set of cutlery and leaving it in the drawer with large labels saying "This is Pat`s" cutlery please return to this drawer after use " but that got hidden away too. These days I have a bag of basic cutlery and kitchen tools which i take with me over on visits , and grit my teeth when my lovely Mum says " but what are we going to do for cutlery - the maids/those women/those theives have stolen it all right under my nose " etc . I also have to be quick to make sure she doesn`t wash mine up and hide it away ! I have spent so many hours searching her house for things of more importance that she has lost or hidden, like glasses or hearing aids, but she has got steadily cleverer at hiding things and i find searching increasingly irritating . I have only a limited amount of time there, to do her shopping and count out her medication ,because of the distance she lives away from me, and i can`t drive in the dark . When i recount some of the things she gets up to, people who haven`t direct experience of dementia tend to laugh , ( tin openers in the wardrobe/airing cupboard) and indeed i do eventually see that it`s funny, but at the time i see red, and that`s the hardest thing i think, i have learned that there is absolutely no point in explaining what has happened to the (damned) cutlery or saying anything reasonable like " Nobody wants your old cutlery - it`s so cheap nowadays " her brain can`t reason things out any more . But i haven`t worked out what is the best thing to say because occasionally she challenges me to ring the Carers and complain , in which case , i have suggested she do so. I have spoken to them and they understand, and with good humour, but i have no idea how they respond to her accusations. Maybe they have some way of calming her down with a little fib . So far all i can do is try and change the subject , i can`t avoid eating there even though to her it is problematic, now that she has "only" one knife fork desert spoon and a coffee spoon "left" in the drawer! I cannot think of a lie that would appease Mum as to the whereabouts of the missing cutlery . And really i suppose there could be far worse things she does !