The room was warm and cosy leading to a lovely relaxing night’s sleep.

I packed my bags which I hadn’t been able to do the night before because of my clothes that were wet due to the Bolsover deluge. However, my fleece was still quite damp and not suitable for wearing or packing.

We checked out of the Premier Inn and drove to the Chatsworth Farm Shop Café at Pilsley for breakfast. The traditional breakfast options are big and hearty so I opted for a lighter breakfast, an almond croissant which was also enormous.

After our delicious breakfast we arrived at Chatsworth in plenty of time (despite the queue for the car park) for our 11.30 house time slot.

We reacquainted ourselves with the house and enjoyed the new exhibitions. Because of our late breakfast we decided to explore the grounds before having lunch. We enjoyed exploring the wider grounds which we have not been able to do before due to limited time available during a day trip.

We had a late lunch, sharing an egg roll, before browsing the shop where I couldn’t resist purchasing 111 Dark Places in England which Mr C had noticed in the smaller shop as we exited the house. Another lady had been captivated by the book and was chuckling with us about ‘a bucket list’ of things to do. Mr C & I had noticed that we had already visited a significant number of places on the list. I suppose that is what happens when you are interested in history.

We had a leisurely drive home, although our Satnav chose a less scenic route home than it had done for our journey to Bolsover Castle. Back home we unpacked before enjoying a lovely pork chop roast dinner.

When we called on mum to take her to breakfast it was obvious that she had become more unwell overnight. She could hardly stand up so we helped her to the breakfast room where she enjoyed her breakfast. We were also pleased to find that the other member of our party had recovered overnight.

After breakfast we made the sad decision to take mum home because she had the early symptoms of another UTI infection.

We were disappointed not to be able to take part in the Easter Morning service in Lincoln Cathedral which was meant to be one of the treats for mum’s birthday.

Back home, we dialled 111 who assessed that mum should attend a critical care appointment in the local hospital within two hours and that they had called ahead to tell the hospital to expect her arrival. However, we found that our local hospital insists that everyone should go through the hospital’s own triage nurses. The triage system labelled her as coming in with vertigo and downgraded her to non-urgent despite us telling them that we suspected she had a UTI and the consequences that we know lead from that.

Mum had a few preliminary tests to rule out a few things and then we sat and waited watching many people come and go. Nine hours later, only mum and another lady, who had been admitted for an orthopaedic problem, remained from the original intakes.

Nine hours was too much for a 91-year-old lady so she decided she wanted to go home but first needed a nurse to remove a canula from her arm. The nurse went to check what was going on and advised that mum was next in the queue and gave an approximate time unless it was bumped by ambulance admissions.

The doctor who saw her was amazing. He talked to mum, assessed and listened to her concerns and accepted that she hadn’t come in with vertigo. From the tests he concluded that she had a UTI infection and, due to frailty, admitted her into hospital for what was left of the night.

This was a relief for me because I knew what would come next…