I've been very quiet on here over the last 18 months. Reading, something that usually anchors me, slipped quietly into the background, not because I didn't love it anymore, but because life asked me to put my energy elsewhere. The main reason is my mum. She's 89 and I adore her. Following a dementia diagnosis, she moved into residential care, a road I never imagined navigating, and one that came with a steep learning curve. In the early days there was a small silver lining, her care home was close enough that I could pop and visit her every day during my lunch hour and those visits mattered more than I can put into words. Over the last year though, her dementia has progressed very rapidly. There was pneumonia, and then on Christmas day sepsis. And as if that wasn't enough, a relative made the decision to move Mum to another care home further away from me, but nearer to her, meaning that I can no longer see her every day. Losing that routine felt like another quiet grief...