Carrying a plate of cookies and juice as olive branch I knock on her bedroom door and pray to every merciful god in the universe to put her in a reasonably civil mood…

Daughter: Come in…

It’s sounding hopeful…no heavy, tired sigh or the usual..’What!!??!’…I enter her squat of a bedroom and place the treats on the table beside her bed…she glances up from her mobile and beams..

Daughter: So kind of you mother..

This person is an imposter….

Daughter: But they’re so so very far away mother…

I have to consciously stop myself from scowling or doing something weird with my eyebrows….I really don’t like it when she calls me mother like that…

Me: What…?

Daughter: The cookies, mother….and the drink…so very far away…

She makes a theatrical gesture with her arm as if it’s all suddenly too much…….reaches for the cookies and juice a few inches away from her, almost touching them, not quite…

Daughter: So…so far away mother…

Me: Perhaps if you got off your backside they wouldn’t be…

Daughter: Would you hand them to me mother dear, would you please…?

Me: For godsakes…!!