My Week: If you are a daughter, you're expected to care: When her elderly mother broke her hip, Heather Godley discovered there is little help available for female children of aged parents

Thursday: I always knew it would happen. I've been expecting it for 20 years. I am by nature a Cassandra, but, like her, I have always been unable to avert disaster, or even prepare for it.

I was on top of a mountain in Umbria enjoying a painting holiday when the phone call came.

'Mum? This is the big one. Mama has broken her hip. We're in casualty now. Come quick.'

My mother is 95 and, although I had organised a relay of carers, by a miracle (was it the candle I lit in Cortona?) my elder daughter with her when she fell in her own flat. Julia coped brilliantly, but my one dread was that I would not see my mother alive again. I am an only child and this mattered to both of us.

Friday: Somehow I managed to wangle an air ticket through the local agency at three times the usual price. I then used every means of transport except donkey to reach the hospital in Surrey.

An intrepid friend drove me through serpentine passes to Arezzo, where I caught a train to Florence by seconds. At Florence the taxi driver warned me that the airport was molto piccolo, but this was an understatement. How can such a beautiful city tolerate a cattle shed for an air terminal? My blood pressure soared when the check-in girl looked at the suspect ticket and informed me that I was not booked on the plane. After 10 minutes of torture, during which she gave a commedia dell'arte performance stabbing her computer, she graciously offered me a seat. Later, I counted nine vacant places on the aircraft.

We eventually took off an hour late and landed, inconveniently, at Stansted in Essex, which was deserted. I humped my luggage and painting gear by train, tube, taxi and my own car to the hospital, where my second daughter was bravely taking her turn in the bedside vigil.

Mercifully, they had delayed the operation (my Cortona candle was still burning) while they stabilised her blood and heart. My mother is a veteran ambulance driver of two world wars. For two days she waited stoically while they starved her, until at last, to use her words, she 'went over the top'.

Saturday: We said good-bye to her as she was wheeled off to the operating theatre. Because my husband was working away, my son took his turn to hold my hand and wait for the inevitable news. At 10pm we were told she was 'doing fine'.

Sunday: The next morning she was sitting up, in full make-up, eating breakfast and calling for her hairpiece. I should have known. She is one indestructible lady.

Relief was brief, however. What came next? The doctor assured me that she would be discharged in a fortnight, on a walking frame. She had always insisted on living alone, supported by carers, cleaners and myself.

That was clearly impossible now. My house has stairs and no ground-floor bathroom. Her flat has no bedroom for a resident nurse.

Tuesday: I consulted the hospital social worker and occupational therapist. After much frenetic form-filling and smiling sympathy, I was told that, as my mother had a daughter, there was no alternative after care. The cottage hospital was 'full', the convalescent home 'too far away'; the home helps, if any, were more expensive than her own cleaner.

I was finally offered a pounds 28.95 carer's allowance, meals on wheels - which she hates - a zimmer and a commode. When I asked about bathing, they said they didn't think that was important now. (Evidently my Cortona candle had burnt out.)

Wednesday: After hours of phoning between hospital visits, I tracked down a bed in a nearby nursing home at pounds 550 per week. At the visitors' drinks machine, I discussed what to do next with the daughter of the 92-year-old patient in the adjacent bed.

Ivy is incontinent, confused and deaf. She has suffered two heart attacks and a bladder infection, and recently broke a leg. Her daughter has nursed her for 20 years and was desperately trying to find a nursing home for a few weeks' respite. It seemed Social Security could offer a small grant to help. The daughter admitted tearfully that she would rather take an overdose than take her back.

The 85-year-old patient in the opposite bed has three sons. I asked one what was going to happen to his mother when she was discharged. She was being given a place in a local residential home. Apparently the sons had no sisters.

My distressed friend and I were never asked if we had jobs. They were lucky that we had just retired from busy careers for a 'well-earned rest'. No one wanted to know about our own health or commitments. I, for one, fetch a grandson from school and look after him till my daughter returns from work.

How does the old saying go? A daughter's a daughter all her life.