Last weekend I decided Amanda should take on a few challenges.

The first was to sort out the dirty washing. That’s all I said. Soon after there was a pile of dark clothes and a pile of light clothes

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Next, put it in the machine, put in the liquid, select the correct setting and…go.

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Once finished, put the washing on the dryer.

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Sunday morning and time to attempt baking; a simple ginger biscuit recipe. Amanda located all the ingredients in the pantry.

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But we were out of baking powder. So it was a short drive to the shop. I went off to get milk and Amanda volunteered to get the baking powder. She was confronted with a whole display of baking items. I gave her a clue and said it was on the top shelf. Amongst a whole confusing shelf of similarly – designed boxes she was quickly able to locate the baking powder.

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On Monday I checked on her via the webcam and noticed she was looking at her phone. Previously we had tried to get her to answer with no success. It goes to answerphone after 3 rings and during that time she has been confused by the screen and the symbols and failed to answer in time.

So I called her. I could see she was still holding it. One ring… two rings… three rings.

I tried again. One ring… two rings… “Hello?”

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On Monday evening we watched Barry Gibb at Glastonbury on TV. She sang along to nearly every song.

EVERY 40 YEAR OLD SONG.

But when I asked her she could not remember what she’d had for dinner 2 hours earlier. I asked her to visualise the meal. She got as far as chicken and gave up.

When I came home from work this evening she told me she had phoned her friend and invited her to come over tomorrow. The friend had called in last week when Amanda had been sleeping so she had left a note on the doormat.

Amanda had managed to locate and identify a phone number on a page of A4 text, somehow found the dialler on her smartphone and called her!

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I was so skeptical I had to check her phone. Of course she was right.

It seems that thoughts are only recalled once they have been around a while and become memories.

Confusing frustrating… but amazing.