So...where to start?...god i don't even know....

OK so the day i came home from Canada, my dad came home from work and was glad to see me and everything but even through my not well, fuzzy jet lagged thoughts i could see that something wasn't quite right. I put it down to the fact that he's not been very well at all recently. He was diagnosed with diabetes about a year back and that's been ok..but he's also got really high stress levels, high cholesterol,countless other minor infections, a low immune system, and he's in the highest risk heart attack category. He also had to go for an MRI scan a couple of weeks after i got back because of the possibility that he'd had a mini stroke while i was away. The scan wasn't conclusive but showed a few black spots on the left hand side of the brain which could be evidence of a stroke..or then again could not. Whatever it is though there has been some damage done. Basically dad should be slowing down..taking it easy.... So was it any of that that was getting him down the day i got home? Of course it was...but he also had the news that our chef..who is a friend of the family..more like a partner in the business...included in each and every decision and has been with us since we bought the place, had announced that he would be leaving in 2,3 weeks at the most.

This was very bad news...there is a massive shortage of chefs in Scotland...Britain in general...chefs who can actually cook anyway. WE tried everything to persuade the guy to stay. He's always had the promise that when we sold the business he would get a cut of it...a pretty big amount of money..that's been something that my dad has made clear since the beginning. And the guy deserves it..he really really does,he's a hard worker and everything. but boy did he let us down this time. He knows all about my dad's medical problems and he knows that a lot of them are stress related..all we were asking is that he would stay a while longer until we could get ourselves covered with another chef. He would get a wage increase, an extra day off a week...even if he just stayed till we sold the place.. because at the end of the day..a restaurant without a chef..well..we'd have to close the place right?

AS it turns out the 3 weeks came and went..my dad searched high and low for another chef..spread the word..called England Italy, France...contacts everywhere to see if they knew of anyone.Nothing.So short of closing the door the day the guy left there was only one thing my dad could think of doing. Going into the kitchen himself.

And he did.

My dad is not a chef. He's a damn good cook..we have fantastic Sunday lunches and amazing Christmas diners..but he's not a chef. It's a totally different thing cooking for loads of people at once who all want something different. He's found it all pretty stressful...but he's coped..people have commented on how good the food is and everything. Problem is that he's been getting up at 6 in the morning, doing all the stuff he usually has to do..which is a hell of a lot, and then doing all of the chef's job as well. Both things are full time stressful jobs that should both really be shared between 2 people anyway. And he's been doing it all..basically the work of 4 people.

Also with dad in the kitchen who was going to run the shop floor? In step the family. For the first week my mum was going up every day, running the floor while my dad was in the kitchen. She was doing really well. Then me and my sister, or just me would go up and take over for the evening shift.

That was working out until 2 Saturdays ago. My mum had been there all day and me and my sis went up to take over at around 7.

Around 9 i got a call.It was my little sister ,crying on the other side of the phone. something about a lot of blood..it wouldn't stop bleeding. Mum had fallen.and it wont stop bleeding. They were going to the hospital.

They had gone to the supermarket before coming home. When they got here mum had to double park cos there was no space outside the house. So she got out and took the shopping..just going to put it at the top of the stairs then go and find a parking space. ON her way up the stairs she lost her footing on a slippy stair.She couldn't stop herself from falling because of the shopping bags. She went straight down and hit her head on the step. She was a bit dazed..and there was a lot of blood...my little sis rang the upstairs neighbour's doorbell and he came running down..only to find that mum had gotten back in the car to go and park it..there had been a build up of traffic starting and the only thing she could think of doing was getting the car out of the way. None of us can believe she drove in the state she must have been in. But you know what they say, in that kind of situation you go into automatic pilot or something.

She came back after parking the car and there was a hell of a lot of blood. Turns out that she had severed an artery. She lost about a litre of blood and had to have fluids replaced. She needed 5 internal stitches and 17 external ones to her forehead.

I told my big sis and we decided not to tell dad until the end of the shift..it would have pushed him over the edge at that point.

So knowing that our mum was in hospital with a serious head injury..and that our gran died of a blood clot in the brain..and that just cos someone was still conscious and talking didn't mean that they were ok..we had to get on with running the business..being nice to customers..keeping a steady hand and getting the work done. And we did.

As soon as the last plate had gone out of the kitchen we told dad...he was really worried... couldn't believe what was happening..especially on top of everything else that was going on. Me and my sis left as soon as we could . We came home first because we didn't know if they would have left the hospital yet by that point. It had been 3 hours. We drove up outside the house..my mobile rang and it was Levi to see how my night had been. I was just starting to explain about mum when my big sis said something about our house window,i looked up and it was cracked.Looked like someone had thrown a rock at it and it was shattered from a central point. Great....that was the last thing we needed. Levi was understandably confused by what she was hearing us say on the other side of the phone..i tried to explain the best i could..which probably wasn't very well. I told her i'd call her back once i knew what was going on.

I got out of the car...thinking that this looked like one of the things you shout at a person in a scary movie for doing..but it had to be done..i had to go and check that the basement door was still intact and none of the rest of the windows were broken...so i got out in the darkness and went round to the side of the house...through the garden...checked the door and the windows and they were ok. My big sis called my dad to let him know about the latest development so that he wouldn't go mad if he got home before us and saw the window. I came back round to the car, got in and we set off for the hospital.

I'd call my aunt earlier in the night to ask her to go look after my little sis. When we got the hospital she was just calling us to see if we were on our way. The first thing i saw though was my little sis.She looked exhausted..she's 13 and she had coped so well with the whole situation.We were really proud of her. I gave her a big hug..and just then someone called out our surname and asked us to come though to the patient area.

Mum was ok, they had done and x ray and nothing seemed to be fractured or damaged. The nurse warned us that there was some very severe bruising and swelling and that we probably weren't going to recognise her very well. He also said that there was a lot of blood lost, we'd have to keep and eye on her for the next while. She'd need plenty of rest. The blood in her hair and at the back of the bandaging was just from the way she'd been lying earlier in the night. She'd find it uncomfortable to have it there but there wasn't really anything they could do about it right now.Her head was still too tender to wash it out so it would have to be done at home the next day..(which i did) It had stopped bleeding now..but it had taken about 3 hours to do so.

He was right, there was a lot of bruising and swelling. Her eyes could hardly open and most of her face was a dark purple colour, but she was still mum and she was surprisingly chirpy considering.

We got her home , warning her about the window on the way. She was concerned that she hadn't parked the car right ,or that she might have damaged it so my sisters stayed in the house with mum and me and my aunt went to check the car out. It was parked amazingly well and there was no major damage..only problem was that the door wasn't closed properly and the frost outside had affected the central locking. We spent sometime fixing the doors and then i set about cleaning the blood from the steering wheel, handbrake, doorhandles etc..

So, that was an eventful Saturday.

Mum of course couldn't work.My sister has a full time job of her own as a dentist...so there was only one person left to fill in. Me.

I have uni 12 till 5 Mondays and Tuesdays, but the restaurant is closed those days anyway. So leaving the house with my dad at 9 am on Wednesday and Thursday..working all day and getting back at around 1 am both nights became my routine. Fridays i have uni 12-5 again...but as soon as i get home me and my big sis are out of the door by 5.30 and back at work for 6. Because there's such a staff shortage we never get back home until at least 1. Last weekend we had another chef in for Friday night..he was pretty good, even if he was sleazy and it meant we could take our usual number of bookings for Saturday night. My dad was still in the kitchen though cos a new chef can't just step in like that.

So Saturday came...and the chef didn't turn up. Our commis chef called in and told us he had to go into hospital for the day,and night..our dishwasher wasn't well and one of our regular waiters had told us the week before that he wouldn't be able to work that night. So..this left my dad,me my sis and the 2 useless partimers who come in on Saturday nights.

My sis went into the kitchen with my dad..may i point out that she's a dentist, not a chef! but she did amazingly well...no one even knew the difference. I managed the floor, the bar,took orders and made up the bills...and delegated to the 2 part timers, who badly need delegated to.

The night went without a hitch, but left everyone shattered.

So that's been my routine for the past 2 weeks. Uni on Monday and Tuesday.Work for about 15 hours a day on Wednesday and Thursday, when i get a break at work i get my books out and do some reading. Uni on Friday. Work on Friday night, work again on Saturday, half day off on Sunday and then start over again.

Mum's much better now, the swelling has gone down completely and there's only a little bruising left. The stitches have come out and the scar is healing slowly...although there will be a permanent scar. She's also lost some feeling in her head..the nerves must have been affected somehow..but we're hoping they'll heal too in time.

All of this has been stressful...and left me with no time for anything else.I haven't been out, i haven't seen any friends and i've been lucky to see Levi once in the week, which has been immensely hard on both of us. Things are getting better...very slowly...

Friday night was a low point for me because a good friend had what might possibly be his last gig with the band he's in right now. I've said i'd go to his past gigs and i've never been able to make it, so i was determined to go to this one. But no, i had to work. So i couldn't go. Levi took another friend and they went to see it, she said he was amazing, which i can well believe, but i was so angry at having missed it. I was sooo angry at the way the business can control all of us. That when my mum was in hospital her main concern was not if she would get better but that she might not be able to work. That we all miss out on so much because of it.

I managed to just make the curfew on Friday night, and joined Levi and a couple of other for all of an hour and a quarter. Determined to have a good time...even if i did still have my work clothes on, looked like a prat and 'the ex'(Levi's that is) was there, hugging and touching my girl...who was really too drunk to know any better.

I did have an alright night though...and coincidently have an aching back from carrying Levi home and literally having to put her into bed.

Her hangover did however give me a good reason to go and see her on Saturday afternoon (when i wasn't working!!) and give her some of my very own brand of special...medicine ;-)

Of course the first night in almost 2 weeks when i didn't haven any texts or invites to go out anywhere was Saturday...when i got the night off work.

Always the way.

Al least things are looking up now.

I'm seeing more of my girl..hopefully will have to work less...will be able to actually get some work for uni...mum is getting better...the new chef appears to be working out (fingers crossed) and a message just popped up on my screen saying i have an email from Oz...which has also cheered me up immensely!But what we really need is to sell that god damn place... and dad still really has to slow things down, majorly.

Hmm

Anyway, must go and work on my dissertation proposal.....and hopefully i will get tomorrow afternoon to myself , so i can go spend it all with my girl...who, after a period of neglect on my part because of circumstances, i feel i must rediscover and rekindle the fire with. We made a damn good start on Saturday(man that girl is hot!)...but there is much 'work' still to be done.

Thanks to those of you who have sent me mails or signed the guestbook...it is so appreciated. :-) Sorry for the length of this entry and the fact that it's just one big long unstructured narrative...i will get back to some decent writing , promise.

lets hope the big guy up there starts giving us a break soon eh?...