À bientôt

Once they had both retired, A & B would come to live in their holiday mansion next door from 1st June until 1st October each year. A had always been something of a stress-puppy but as his Parkinson's progressed his departure anxiety began to reach new heights. A month before departure he would ask a friend to book a taxi and then he would pester that person with alarming frequency to confirm that the taxi had indeed been booked. When the phone calls started to come every twenty minutes something had to be done and Spouseman came up with the brilliant idea of a cartoon strip which could be positioned directly in A's line of vision. I drew this cartoon strip five years ago and they keep it as one of their treasures.

In those days the task of booking the taxi fell to a friend, who has since died. The taxi was to collect them from the mainland port and drive them to Athens airport. Our task was to go to their house at the crack of dawn on departure day and get them and all their luggage to the local port. This had to be done in two cars, theirs and ours, because of the phenomenal amount of luggage with which they travel. These days we get D the friendly taxi driver, who's car has an enormous boot to perform this task.

We went up this morning to say goodbye and to help them get them and their luggage into the taxi. When A is emotional his legs fail him completely so Spouseman and D, the taxi-driver, helped him across the gravel to the waiting car while B was making absolutely sure everything essential had been packed – Ooops! Almost forgot the pestle and mortar! Quite why people with more than one home have only one pestle and mortar is beyond my comprehension but most of their choices are beyond my comprehension so best not to dwell on that.

They can no longer manage four months, this time they were here only six weeks. We bid them à bientôt as we always do, keeping up the pretence that we expect to see them next year. We never do expect to see them next year but they have managed to surprise us every year for a very long time. This story is not destined to have a happy ending but we do what we can to make it less unhappy.

Because A cannot abide the thought of people he knows seeing him in a wheelchair, he refuses one, so B cannot take him out to the garden or the park. They just sit side by side on the sofa all day long doing nothing but smoking cigarettes. It's no surprise they have no visitors. They could both have so much better quality of life if A were not so vain or stubborn. So sad.