Update: Mum/Nanna/Margaret O'Keefe

I visited Mum today at her new address. On Monday she moved to Phillip House, a Nursing Home... oops, an Aged Care Facility... at Waverley. It's a bright, airy, breezy place, a quite modern building on Bronte Rd, and the manager and staff seem most pleasant. She is in a four-bed room, but today for the first time in ages I saw her sitting up (well, down really) in a chair, wearing her own clothes. I can't say she looks great, but she certainly looks better. She has got rid of the feeding tube and the nurses tell me she is taking in nourishment - still a bag of bones, though. Dr Dassos came to see her yesterday and is changing her medication - it's good that he has agreed to continue visiting her.

You can visit more or less any time, and if you're not nearby you might like to send a card to brighten up her life and her room (or quarter thereof). She's at:
Phillip House, 321 Bronte Rd Waverley 2024 and the phone no is 9389 3216.

I've filled in a bundle of legal and financial forms and came home today with several more. As I'm off to Noosa tomorrow (playing for a post Mardi Gras dinner - I thought I was past all that), I'll see her again next Wednesday.

A huge thanks to Dorothy, Chris and Sue for completing the unenviable task of packing up her unit at Southern Cross. I now have a large box of papers and stuff and have so far come across John's Leaving Certificate, all my report cards from Lismore and a set of her dentures. Time for a drink.

Hugh