Hook Home Help helps out

This is a photo of my daughter and her boyfriend helping my mum at her allotment. My mum is not one for photos and not one for accepting help. My mum is in her mid eighties and is officially retiring from being a self employed bookkeeper this month. She only recently admitted that yoga and pilates are a bit of a struggle so she took up croquet instead. Now almost every day from March until October she can be seen heading off with her mallet in hand for croquet training or matches. Once or twice a year she will acknowledge that she needs some help at the allotment so we organise a team to go up and get as much done as possible before we are declared redundant. 

My mum is one person who Hook Home Help is not allowed to help. Any suggestion of help is very firmly turned down. Sometimes people help me to help her by stealth, like the friend who said, “Do you know that your mum is carrying watering cans around the allotment? Maybe you could convince her to use a hose?”. We did eventually convince her to use a hose but not very often. If we offer to carry the watering cans then we are told this is not necessary. 

My mum takes herself to London on the train and drives to see friends on the coast. She says yes to every single trip that she can do via the U3A or Towns Women's Guild because, “Maybe next year I won’t be able to, so I better go now”. 

Sometimes she announces with great surprise that she is a bit tired. She contemplates cancelling something, and then doesn’t. 

So when people tell me that they may need some time to convince their parent that the parent could do with some help, I tell them that I totally understand. They have no idea of the extent to which I understand. 

Meanwhile some of my clients like to hear about her adventures. They like to hear about how she went on holiday the day after the cataract operation because the lady on the phone said it would be fine. And how she drove to Wales for a weekend away just after buying a new car. How she caught the train to Yorkshire to see an old friend before she died. And then a few months later she took a train to Devon to spread that friend’s ashes in the place that she was happiest. 

Sometimes people ask us to go and do Stealth Helping. We go and solve one issue like changing the sheets and while we are there, check over everything, clean things, throw away out of date food, and report back that everything is OK, and we are there when it isn’t. However today’s story is largely about how closer to home, Hook Home Help is not allowed to do any helping unless there is an actual emergency. Like a fence falling down at the allotment. Just saying, I am very skilled in Stealth Helping…