To find this slightly odd?

[DaisyLovesMetronidazole]

My grandfather is 88. He is quite able bodied and mentally sound.

He is a poor cook, and as a result his children visit him and cook for him.

This is all fine.

There are no complex needs. He is fussy, in that he will complain a lot, but he will eat everything he is given.

However, my mother spends hours of every day on the telephone discussing his eating habits with her brothers and sisters - mainly gossipy stuff like whose cooking he likes the best and what comments he has passed on the most recent concoction.

It's not really an issue of empathising or trying to understand, because I'm not holding this against my mum, but AIBU to find it strange?

No that is weird. Hours of every day?

YANBU. Maybe leave some hobby leaflets lying around when you next visit her.

At least an hour.

My dad told me about it months ago. I stayed at home recently, and saw it to be true.

When their mother was alive they took care of her because she was unwell, and naturally discussed this a bit. However, cooking for their dad seems to have taken over...

Is your mother bored perhaps? Or lonely?

Well, my father and youngest sister are at home. It is possible, though.

She also has friends, but no hobbies and no job.

I ask because my Mum often tells me in minute detail whats he has bought for tea, cooked for tea etc etc...she's retired and a bit bored.

Well....people's world shrinks when they get older. My MIL tries to do this with my DD..I mean about my DD...she wants to alk about BORING things. My Mum to some degree also...its just what happens when people start ageing.

[gulp]

She is actually quite likely to be bored, now that you mention it.

I don't think she's lonely, though.

I agree that it's just a symptom of her getting older. Perhaps cooking for your DGF is the focus of most of her days so she doesn't really have much else to talk about.

I know when I phone my Gran she will easily spend 40 minutes telling me about what she has eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner over the past week, then about where she bought her meat, the route she took round town when doing her shopping, what M&S have on special offer at the moment....... And this is before she even thinks to ask how me or my dc are, but when I tell her she doesn't listen because she's waiting to tell me what she's having for breakfast tomorrow.

Perhaps she just likes to chat to her siblings, and it gives them something to talk about?