...and so it ends

So the last posting on here was that M-I-L was actually ill this time. This posting is unpleasant but necessary to complete the tale.

It turns out that she was very ill. She was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and, after initally treating her, it became clear that it was going to be a losing battle in the end.

After a week they took the decision to stop treatment as it would be unpleasant and pointless. Following withdrawal of treatment They initally gave her a prognosis of about 6 weeks.
She lasted less than a week. Thankfully she was spared the prospect of it being drawn out and sinking further by the day for the full six weeks.

Despite everything, we're going to miss her. We won't have the same inane conversations about bus routes and the order the balls came out in at Bingo. We won't feel the red mist descending as she does yet another one of her individually innocuous but cumulatively really annoying foibles.

Even in death she has provided us with some moments of amusement and incredulity:
She appears to have saved every paper plate and plastic cup from every buffet she's been to in the last 10 years. We found cupboards full of the damn things. Quite when she thought they would come in useful I'm at a loss to fathom.

She's kept till receipts from things she bought 25 years ago - well, you never know if you'll need to take it back do you?

Anyway, it's the end of an era. I've been asked to leave the blog in place as a testament, and a health warning to anyone who is thinking that moving the in-laws in with could work out really well.

If you've enjoyed reading this blog, please spare a moments of silence for her, and make a donation to a Cancer Research charity operating wherever you live. Maybe someone else might get a chance next time around.

Thanks for reading

Update

A quick update on recent developments, and the reason for the lack of entries recently, follows:

M-I-L eventually recovered from the bout of the sh!ts (which lasted for several hours). However, after all of that shenanigans she actually became ill for real. Initially we took the assertions of being ill again with the usual pinch of salt (i.e. one the size of Cheshire) but it became clear that something was actually wrong with her this time ("The Boy who Cried Wolf" http://www.storyarts.org/library/aesops/stories/boy.html comes vividly into focus here!)

(As an aside, the moral of "The Boy who Cried Wolf" is supposed to be "Never tell lies". WRONG. The real moral is "Never tell the same lie twice" - an important distinction).

Anyway, the upshot is that it may be a while before there are any new posts.