Bingo!

In December last year, my husband's grandmother had a serious stroke. You can imagine how we felt... The year before his mother went into hospital and was diagnosed with cancer at about the same time. It didn't look good. It was so bad, in fact, that his father flew all the way home from China. We were getting ready to say goodbye.

But Jay's nan, Dulcie, is AMAZING. One day the doctors were saying that she was completely paralysed and had brain damage and the next, she was sitting up talking. What a fighter!

She spent a few months in hospital before she was independent enough to go home but now she's back in her own house, living by herself. There are still things she can't do, and her right hand still has no mobility in it but the fact that she's still with us at all is astounding.

Dulcie has been wanting to go to her  local welfare club and play bingo for several weeks now but has been worried that she wouldn't be able to cope. Jay and his brother got together and decided that we would all go and make a family outing of it.

My husband with his brother and his grandmother.

It was a long trip for Jay and I - at least a half an hour in the car. His brother and his brother's fiance live just around the corner from his nan so it was easier for them. Jay's brother also brought one of his best friends and Dulcie's sister came along as well.

The Beddau welfare club is an old, run down buiding that needed a face lift about fifty years ago. All the other people there looked like they probably remembered exactly what it looked like back then too! I was the youngest person there by about a decade. My future sister-in-law said that the average age there had to be about 65. 

I've never played bingo before. Not outside of elementary school, anyway. They play a strange form of bingo here in Britain. The cards look strange and you yell "house" instead of "bingo." Not that I ever got the chance... I didn't come anywhere near winning! But Jay's brother and his fiance did!

There was also a singer performing. He was okay, even though he subjected us to Neil Diamond songs and thought that Josh Groban was an Irish singer. At least he was in tune.

I couldn't believe it when I came back from the bathroom and found Dulcie up on her feet dancing with her sister!

Even though it wasn't the most happening place, we all had fun. Dulcie said she had a great time - and she put away a fair bit of beer too! We hope that we can get together and do it again at least once a month.