Apple Crumble

Before mum moved into her Warden Assisted flat the many apple trees in her garden were loaded with fruit. She had become very popular with the neighbours giving them bags of apples for their freezers. The whole street seemed to be making tarts and crumbles.

I had tried on several occasions to suggest she take a bag of apples to the Care Home where dad lives. I am sure they would have made crumble or tart for all the residents but she was strangely resistant to doing so.

Whilst all this had been going on she was also beginning to pack for the move. We just weren’t able to make her understand that we were paying packers to do everything so she had no need to worry about packing herself.

As you can imagine this also created some stress and we saw a recurrence of her delusions. They followed the usual pattern; that is, she thought dad was visiting in the night, helping himself to various things, usually food, and then leaving again by the morning. But just for a change she also thought he was bringing stuff back!

Then the delusions started to take a worrying turn. Here is the story:

Mum eventually made an apple crumble for dad. But rather than take it to him at the Care Home, she left it on her kitchen shelf alongside some things of his she had found whilst packing. She explained that he could pick it up when he came in the night and moved (stole) her stuff.

Well, a few days passed and surprise, surprise he didn’t collect the Apple Crumble. Eventually she had to throw it away as it was going off. Even so in mum’s mind there was no chance this meant he hadn’t been to visit. Instead it meant that he was just being fussy about Apple Crumble!

Perhaps she should have made Apple Pie instead!