It is my sister who insists my mother must never go into a Care Home. It sounds a selfless insistence, and she does far more than my one day a week looking after her.

Yet sis relies on my one-day-a-week, and me doing the jobs like the paperwork that she hates, for the system to work. If I said I couldn't take it any more (for me, it's the emotional strain, not the hours worked) she would be hard pressed to keep the whole thing going.

My mother has live-in care, but Maria takes the weekend off. There's backup care some hours of the weekend too (which my sister pays for to shield my mother to facing up to economic realities - there's no question of mum ceding finacial control). But all this care isn't enough. She want us, kith and kin.

But back to my sister's "selflessness", her frantic driving round southern England, constantly doing things for mum, but seldom sitting down. She admits that she hates to sit down next her, and one of the reasons she is opposed to the Care Home idea is it would involve a lot more bedside sitting. And, come to think of it, my sister has just moved to a smaller house - no longer room to build a granny flat. She is forever feeling guilty she's not doing enough - but, perhaps, in another way she is being just as selfish as I am, me trying to cut the knot...

I know I've said most of this before, but I need to set it out in b & w in one place and see I can come, for once, to a sensitive but honest plan of action.

PS. My mother is not limitlessly wealthy. Eight, ten years in private a Care Home would be about her limit. She will be 94 in July, but definitely trying to live for ever.

PPS. My sister is very different from me. She is terrified of facing her demons.