Tuesday 24 November 2015

Never a dull moment...

Yesterday was fun. In the morning, I had to go around and check room occupancy. Most residents offered me food (which I had to turn down, except once as the man wouldn't let me leave without having some of his tomato and onion scrambled eggs) and one made me a cup of shockingly sweet tea. At some point, I sat on the floor in a corridor to check which rooms I hadn't seen yet - and someone came out and gave me a chair.

I left work on time (for once) after a busy day, singing to myself in the car. As I drove into my village (15 minutes away from the asylum centre), I did a double take. Standing at the crossroads were a dozen residents from my centre. Rather puzzled, I parked the car and walked up to them.

Turns out they were coming back from the train station and had taken the wrong bus. "It's all Mr Abib's* fault", they said, laughing. "He said we had to get on that bus!" There were men, as well as a mother with her two young children. Bear in mind the cold weather is settling now, and it was dark and freezing. I picked up my phone and called the centre, who sent someone with the minibus to pick them up. I waited with them, and phoned Nicholas to warn him I'd be late - but his phone was off. So the residents started asking me about him. "What time does your husband get back from work?" When I explained we had to go buy some food, one of them looked a little puzzled. "Does your husband need to tell you what to buy?" "No, we go shopping together." This earned Nicholas a round of applause, so I added, "He also cooks for me most of the time, you know!" Second round of applause.

Our residents are fun.





(*Name changed for privacy reasons)

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