UK

Six months had passed and the time was rapidly approaching when we would return to Africa for a second year. The time in the UK had flown by as we worked on our house and visited family and friends around the country. With Pete's Mum now in a care home, each month we drove the 500 mile round trip to Liverpool to see her.

Our arrival in January had started badly when we discovered the tenants for the previous six months, the Parkers, had left our house in a bad way. Our new letting agent had taken them on while we were in Africa so we had never met them but our neighbour described them as Chavs. Certainly some of the things they did like trying to burn assorted bottles, glasses, tin cans, saucepans etc on the bonfire at the bottom of the garden bore that out. 

We were annoyed at the agents for not picking up a lot of the damage when they did their checkout but the most annoying thing was the Parkers totally denied what they did and even tried to say they had found the place in that state when they moved in, luckily we had photo's to prove otherwise.

At least this time we had the Parkers deposit to cover the damage but we still had all the hassle of clearing up the mess, filling 20 black bin bags alone with the bonfire rubbish and that was just for starters. Mr Parker owned a bathroom/kitchen showroom on the outskirts of Brighton so I was all for dumping the rubbish in his doorway but Sue talked me out of it, still one day we may stick his prescription for Viagra and the sex aid which we found amongst the rubbish on his shop window! 

In late June with just three weeks to go before we were due to fly back to Africa we got a call from Pete's brother that Pete's Mum had had a stroke and had been rushed into hospital!

We drove up the next day in disbelief and a strong feeling of Déjà Vu, it was exactly two years ago that we had been  packing up the house for the first time to go to Africa and had received the call that Sue's Mum had been taken into hospital which sadly resulted in her dying less than two months later!

Our initial reaction on seeing Mum was one of relief, we hadn't known what to expect but had prepared ourselves for the worst. However, she looked fine, no obvious signs of paralysis or drooping of the face. Another danger from a stroke is difficulty in swallowing so our first worry was could Mum eat and drink ok?

Thankfully this didn't seem to be a problem in fact you wouldn't have known she had a stroke until she tried to speak then we realised how serious it was when only gibberish came out, the part of the brain that controls speech had been destroyed. The worst thing was you could see Mum didn't realise she wasn't making any sense so she was getting more and more anxious and frustrated that we didn't understand what she was saying.

My sister had been told Mum would stay in hospital for at least two weeks and would receive speech therapy but after less than a week, despite the staff there firmly believing it was far too early, she was sent back to the care home - it seemed that at 95 the decision had been made that Mum was just too old to spend anymore resources on.

Now as in 2005 we faced a terrible dilemma, should we cancel our flight back to Africa or stick to our plans. It wasn't as simple as just cancelling the flight and going later we also had our house to consider. We had already agreed our new tenants  would move in in just two weeks time and before then we had to move our furniture and all our other stuff back into storage.

We also knew our tenants could not delay moving in and as it had been so hard to get tenants for just a six month let we didn't feel it sensible to cancel the agreement especially as the whole point of delaying was to be able to see Mum and we could hardly do that from 260 miles away.

However, if we just cancelled the flight where would we live and how long would we need?  We battled with this decision all week spending each day with Mum, Mum seemed to be making some progress and except for her speech she looked fine. My brother and sister felt we should still go to Africa as planned as did the staff at the home who pointed out Mum could stay the way she was for months or even years.

Even so it was the hardest decision of my life, some think we have lived a charmed life of travel and adventure but to do this we have also had to make some very tough choices and do without many of the things other's would not, seeing family and friends being just one of them.  

By the end of the week we had simply run out of time, if we were to let the house as planned then we had to get back to Sussex now otherwise we would not be able to pack up the house in time, even then it would be manic given we had lost a week.  It was very hard but there was little more we could do in Liverpool so we decided to go back to Sussex.

Sunday the 8th July was our last day with Mum, in the afternoon she started to tire so while she lay in bed dozing we sat and read. Eventually the moment I had been dreading came when we simply had to leave, we wouldn't get back to Sussex till the early hours as it was.

Mum's speech had not improved all week so we still couldn't understand her. We left as she was sleeping and as we walked out the door I bent down to give her a last kiss and just said "Mum we are going now but we will see you soon when we get back from Africa"  to my surprise without opening her eyes she just said very clearly - "thank you".