A quiet year for us?

hubby and I went to a delightful new year's eve ball last night and enjoyed ourselves dancing strip the willow and the dashing white sergeant into the early hours, a good way to finally shake off my streaming cold of the past few days.

Today I visited mum to wish her a happy new year, but she is full of doom and gloom, and additionally she was watching the TV with the sound on virtually zero. I couldn't hear it, so she certainly couldn't.

She then explained that she doesn't want to annoy the neighbours in the adjacent flats. They are, I know, all deaf, as I have met them and they apologised in advance if they annoyed her with their tv turned up too loud. More than 70% of people over 80 have a hearing problem, so I can't see them objecting to mum's TV. She won't hoover, either, in case they object, so the new carpets are going to get a little messy. hmmm, after a bit of an uneasy discussion I made some coffee and gave her a hug, by way of changing the subject.

She then reminded me of how we will all soon be impoverished, thanks to the recent profligacy of the banks. We will be like the famous German man with his wheelbarrow of banknotes going to buy a loaf of bread, she says.

I tried to reassure her and asked her to explain how she thinks this will affect her but she says if I can't see it then we will have to agree to differ. She watches a lot of TV and there is much doom and gloom on the news, of course. And she had watched Alistair Darling being interviewed by Robert Peston on TV this morning, so she was probably better informed than me.

We have to sell her bungalow now that she is moved into her retirement flat and of course the market value of that will be much less than a year ago, but I still can't see her being penniless. I do wish I could reassure her that she is safe and will remain comfortable and well fed. There is food in the shops and we will be fine.

'You think there will always be food in the shops? - you just wait... I remember the 1930s when people came to our door begging for a slice of bread and my mother giving them a cup of tea and a jam sandwich.' oh dear, I hope she is wrong.

She had an interesting telephone conversation, telling a friend in the south that there are no vacuum cleaners used in the flats and it's 'quiet like the grave', and so she now has a phobia about making a noise.

I explained gently that it's not quiet like the grave, as we listened to the lady upstairs hoovering last week - but mum couldn't hear it, and we listened to the lady upstairs' tv last week several times, but mum couldn't hear it. She's deaf but refuses to have her ears looked at or entertain the idea of a hearing aid.

'They don't work' she says. 'Jack has one and he says it's rubbish, Pearl has both digital and analogue and she hates both of them, so I won't waste my money.'

oh well, after a quiet Christmas, and a quiet New Year I think she'll be having a quiet 2009. No more Classic fm on a Sunday morning. She used to love that and I would often pop in to see her in the bungalow and find her with a tissue mopping her eyes as she enjoyed a little nostalgic piece of music, whether Beethoven's Emperor concerto or Barber's Adagio or the heart-rending Benedictus from Jenkins' The Armed Man - always reminded her of my dad, who fought at Monte Cassino.