.. to want some slight modifications to Spouse

in particular it would be good if he remained calm, didn't try to do so much - and tried harder not to involve me in all the ensuing chaos if I am feeling unwell.

Yesterday was my day off work. I woke up with swollen glands and flu like symptoms. It was also the day on which it was arranged he would pick up his 92 year old father from his sheltered accommodation because builders had to work in the property. The plan was to take his father to sort out a new bank account. When it emerged that his Dad - who suffers from diminished memory and hearing loss had not had anything to eat or drink or brought his hearing aid along, Spouse didn't take him to a cafe for breakfast but persevered with the bank appointment where he had to act as interpreter because my father-in-law couldn't hear anything.

By the time they got to our home by lunchtime Spouse was in an agitated state because his father gets palpitations and breathlessness if he has taken his morning medication on an empty stomach - this becomes worse if my father in law has to undertake any activity. Spouse then insisted on making a second breakfast for himself and his Dad rather than cracking on with making lunch as planned. So as I was getting hungry - and didn't want cereal - I ended up turning the oven on, defrosting stuff etc - generall helping to prepare lunch to miniimse delays.

Spouse completely forgot that our daughter was home having finished a GCSE paper and only laid the table for three.

The day wore on this chaotic fashion. Spouse eventually deposited his father back at his sheltered accommodation. By this point it was supper time and I ended up both cooking and washing up - I had started to revive a bit by this point. But the straw that broke my back was when Spouse then began moving a piece of heavy furniture that had to be put out for a council collection today without having first cleared anything else out of the way. I ended up not just helping - along with my two daughters - to carry the heavy sofa, but to get pictures and possessions out of the way, replace them etc.

I could have wept. It was the point at which Spouse asked me - by this time I was absolutely shattered all over again - if I wanted to go for a walk, that I lost my rag. I know it was a difficult day for him. But I just wish he could he have managed not only to look after his father, but to look after me a bit.