Grandma is currently in a feud with our new toaster. They have a fight every morning. I’m on the toaster’s side. I have pre-set it to the perfect setting for her toast but she insists on feeling around for the dial to turn the heat up and raging at the ‘blasted thing’ about the burnt results. This is my cue to roll my eyes and put another slice of bread in the toaster, telling her for the millionth time to STOP touching the dial. She will then indignantly lie and say she didn’t touch it. What a great start to the day- every single day.

It would be so much simpler if she just let me do it, as I do 90% of her breakfast already, but she wants to do this part. I understand it is about her independence and wanting to help, but as her vision is now near zero, even the simplest tasks require supervision.

If the toaster is reading this, her rage isn’t just directed at you Toastie mate, she is also in a long standing battle with her tights that she accuses of hiding, she swears the sink ‘moved’ resulting in her flooding the bathroom, or hating my coffee machine for just being new and ‘modern’. These assignations of blame to inanimate objects are funny the first few times they happen but I now want to scream every time she starts grumbling at whichever object has offended her. Her anger at not being able to do basic things on her own anymore is understandable and clearly borne out of frustration. I suppose it is easier to direct it at an object instead of herself or me. I get my fair share of it too, but only when I’m late with the wine or some other unacceptable misdemeanour.

At home, she will bump into walls and furniture in the house but she can get about relatively well as we make sure to keep everything in its correct place. Being as blind as a 99-year-old-bat does have its challenges when we go out. I now have to guide every step and tell her when there is a curb and slope etc. Despite me never having guided her into trouble, her lack of trust in me is evident as she will extend her hand in front of her as if she’s about to walk into something or randomly decide there is a step she needs to tackle. She still likes to go into shops where she becomes (even more of a) toddler and insists on touching everything she can feel on shelves and asking me to describe what she is touching. She mainly does it so she can dramatically share her disapproval at today’s fashion with a loud ‘EW NO!’.

She was recently dismayed in M&S when I told her she was handling period underwear – a concept which I then had to explain – drawing amused glances from shoppers. A recent more embarrassing incident happened last weekend after we’d had our flu jabs. Being a good guide granddaughter, I then took her into town for lunch and to have a feel around some shops. We went into Boots on the hunt for some paracetamol in case our jabs made us sick, eager to help, grandma started feeling items on the first shelf she could find, grabbed a box of condoms, waived it in the air and loudly asked me if this was what we were looking for.

‘No, grandma. We absolutely don’t need those.’

‘What is it?’

‘Condoms. Put them down, grandma.’

‘Oh‘ she said awkwardly as she felt around the shelf to put them back down while I tried not to catch anyone’s eye.

Her refusal to accept that her tights aren’t possessed, is only matched by her refusal to accept anything new that could help her. She goes deaf every time I press the talking clock’s big red button – refusing to acknowledge it has told her the time and asking me to tell her ‘the proper time’. She won’t have audio description on the TV, and she sure as hell won’t have wheelchair.

We rage on.