Chinese Whispers - A drama in 2 parts. Part 2

...I switched my phone on again at lunchtime. It immediately started buzzing with text messages.

My cousin had text me to say that she'd spoken to Auntie M about it and told her how pissed off she was with her.

Auntie M had text me to say that she was really sorry about the misunderstanding and she didn't realise and she didn't know what else to say.

Then my Mum had text me asking how my back was today and how word was.

Erm......

Something wasn't quite right.

So I phoned Mum;

Mum: Oh hi, how's your back [bad actually, I need to fill you on that as well. There really is so much to tell you]
Me: It's pretty bad but not awful
Mum: Right so I'll bring the cats round tonight at about 5pm [GOD I haven't even told you about that have I? Worst. blogger. ever.]
Me: Okaaaaaay.....so.....what happened with Auntie M last night?
Mum: What do you mean?
Me: Well, Sister rang me saying that Auntie M had called you saying The Boyfriend and I were all but over.
Mum: No she didn't. We were on the phone anyway and I told her that you were having problems with The Boyfriend and she said that yes she'd heard and was really sorry about it.
Me: Right. Yeah. Sister kind of made out like it was a really big deal. Said she had to practically talk you down off the roof and gave me a lecture about relationships this morning.
Mum: Oh god no. It wasn't anything like that.

Brilliant.

Thanks so much Sister.

So I then had to text my cousin back and tell her to stop self-flagellating and text my Auntie M back (who by the way is incredibly sensitive and prone to suicide attempts) telling her not to worry, that everything's got a bit out of hand and blown out of proportion.

So basically I had to fix something that I didn't start.

And I end up feeling bad because it's as if I've over-reacted and been awful to everyone.

And I had to go through all this drama and yet not be able to tell The Boyfriend about any of it because I didn't think he'd appreciate knowing that my entire family was talking about our relationship troubles.

And none of this would have happened if I'd followed my normal policy of shut up and keep it to myself.

Lesson learned.

So having witnessed how quickly things spiralled out of control with my family and taking onboard some of your comments about my relationship issues at the moment I feel I need to probably issue a clarification about the state of play.

A clarification

I have been unhappy for a while in my relationship. Nothing major, just one of those nagging feelings in the pit of your stomach or the back of your mind that something isn't right. You know the ones I mean? Not a big deal, you don't feel like you want to jump off a bridge, just...an unsettling feeling.

This unsettled feeling was brought to the fore with the revelation that I was still most likely, kind of, probably in love with an ex - as demonstrated in the Head vs Heart post (who by the way didn't cheat on me, I'm not sure where that's come from, I don't think the post was incredibly clear, probably because my head wasn't.)

To. be. clear.

I am not;

a) Leaving the boyfriend for the ex. Bad at relationships I might be but I've most definitely had enough of my fill to know a bad idea when I see one.

b) Starting up any kind of relationship with the ex at the moment. If I break up with the boyfriend I'm not going to be moving on to anything else.

c) Rushing into any major decisions. I realise that this could be the proverbial 'rocky patch' and everything will right itself and in a year's time I will look back on this and laugh. (Well. Probably not, but you know what I mean.)

So I hope that makes things a little clearer for everybody. Maybe I need to post this round to my family so everybody has the same story and can stop gossiping behind my back.

And now that I've done that I can move on to other things because quite frankly I am sick of hearing myself talking about it and you must be sick of hearing about it.

Done and done.

Chinese Whispers. A drama in 2 parts. Part One

Whilst I was down south staying with my cousin I told her about the relationship woes I’m having at the moment. I didn’t go in to great detail, just said that I wasn’t happy at the moment, I wasn’t sure what was making me unhappy and I didn’t really know how things were going to pan out long term.

I figured that she’d tell her Mum, my Auntie S, because they’re like that. They are kind of gossipy and prone to dramatics, and this would be right up their street. I also guessed that Auntie S would tell her sister, Auntie M, because....well, that’s just what they do.

(A quick note: Auntie M and Auntie S are my Dad’s sisters but they are still very good friends with my Mum.)

Last night I get a call from my sister, something which never happens.

Sister: I need to talk to you when The Boyfriend isn’t there? Can you do that?
Me: Erm, not really seeing as it’s 9pm and, you know, he lives here. I can go in the bedroom, will that do?
Sister: I’ve just spoken to Mum and she’s had Auntie M on the phone telling her that she’s really sorry to hear about you and The Boyfriend and that you’re all but over.
Me: What?! Ugh. Cousin must have told them but it’ll have got exaggerated, you know what they’re like
Sister: Well I’ve practically had to talk Mum off the roof, I’ve persuaded her not to ring you and have a bath instead.
Me: I really can’t talk about this now, I’ll call you tomorrow morning.

I immediately texted my cousin to ask her what the hell she’d told Auntie M because she’d phoned my Mum who was now freaking out. She replied that she’d told her Mum but had told her to keep it quiet.

I spent the rest of the night with my stomach churning. I didn’t understand where things had gone so wrong and hated the thought that my Mum was upset about something. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was. Mum knows what I’m thinking, she has that incredibly annoying Mother knack of knowing when something isn’t right and had badgered me to the point where it was just easier to tell her, but I had downplayed the whole situation knowing that she would worry.

So this morning I call my sister:

Me: Right. So. What happened?
Sister: Well Auntie M phoned Mum and said she was really sorry to hear about you and The Boyfriend and that it was all but over.
Me: Yeah well, you know what they’re like. They exaggerate stuff, plus it’s gone from cousin to Auntie S, to Auntie M, to Mum so it’ll have morphed into this massive deal. I don’t understand why Mum’s freaking out so much, she knows all of this anyway.
Sister: Well she cares about you doesn’t she?!
Me: Yeah I know that but....
Sister: So what it is that’s wrong with you?
Me: Well I don’t know. I’m just not happy...
Sister: Well is it because everything’s up in the air at the moment and you’re going to be moving and you’re looking for a job [yeah I need to tell you all about that don’t I?!] and things like that?
Me:...Well yeah...maybe...I’m not sure...
Sister: Because you have to work at relationships you know. God knows I’ve been through enough stuff with _____ and sometimes things get a bit rough.
Me: Yeah. I know...
Sister: I mean and people just care, I mean Mum cares, I care.
Me: Ok. Stop. I know you all care. But this really isn’t that big a deal. I don’t even know what’s going to happen in the future, maybe everything will be ok, maybe it won’t. Even if the boyfriend and I do split up, the world isn’t going to spin off its axis, everything will be ok. And I appreciate that you care but it really isn’t that big a deal.

This is not a conversation I wanted to have at 7.30am.

I do not need a lecture about the fact that sometimes relationships get tough. I’m not a moron. I especially do not need a lecture from someone who most definitely should have left her husband about 10 years ago (but that’s a whole other story).

As soon as I put the phone down I felt a rush of claustrophobia like I’ve never felt before. I ended up having to open the window and stick my head out of it, gulping the air down. I wanted to scream. I was crying. It was such a massive rush of emotions it took me by surprise.

It was just extra pressure that I didn’t need. I am well aware that people will worry about me which is why I tend to not tell them about these things. I’ve actually surprised myself with how many people I have told, I’d normally just think things over myself and then act. I don’t need to know that everyone else is wondering what I’m thinking, I’m the only person that needs to know what I’m thinking at the moment. I don’t even think the boyfriend needs to know what I’m thinking because I don’t know what I’m thinking.

I needed space. If I had the money I’d have got on my jet plane and speeded off somewhere. I feel like everyone’s crowding me sometimes.

I know that they’re just concerned and they want to be supportive but now all I’m conscious of is that they’re wondering what’s going on in my head. So instead of concentrating on working through the contents of my incredibly scrambled brain I’m instead focusing on how everyone else is feeling.

This is why I don’t tell people my business, because of the gossip and rumours that start to spread. I don’t want to be thinking about what Auntie M and Auntie S and my cousin are saying about my situation and I definitely don’t want them talking to my Mum about it.

After the phone call with my sister I switched my phone off. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. Plus I have, you know, a job to go to and turning up looking and feeling like a mental patient wasn’t what I wanted to do today.

I especially didn’t want to know was what was going to happen when I switched my phone on again in the afternoon...

So this one time I confronted a man when I was naked...

I recently remembered that I was asked by a few of you about a story I briefly mentioned way back when 2010 was but a mere babe in arms. I published this post listing some of the things that had happened to me in the previous 10 years and I mentioned the time I confronted a man who had broken in to my Mum's house when I was naked.

Now is the time to tell it. Sometimes these stories work way better when you tell them in person rather than writing them down so I hope I can pull this one off.

Many moons ago (ok, it was about 2004/2005) I was living back home with Mum. I had finished my degree and was spending a year saving up to begin my Masters degree the following year. To be honest I never did really save up, I spent more of my time not eating and getting drunk - I've never been thinner or more hungover, it was fabulous.

One night, after finishing work at the cafe, I went out with a friend for a few drinks. I came home not drastically late, I think about 10.30pm. I wasn't steaming drunk, just in that incredibly happy state somewhere between feeling a bit fuzzy and complete incoherence. I took myself off to bed with the aim being to sleep away the inevitable hangover I would suffer from the next day.

I awoke suddenly to the sound of my Mum dashing about in my room. I peered through bleary eyes (I've still never learned to take my mascara off at night) at her. What was she doing? Didn't she know I wasn't back at work until 12pm? Why was she trying to get me to wake up?

As I slowly surfaced to join the world I became aware that she was saying something to me.

"There's a man in the house!!"

There's nothing like a healthy dose of adrenaline to cure a hangover.

Mum had disappeared out of my room after making this revelation and disappeared into hers. Still unsure of what on earth she was on about I decided to follow her.

Now. Sometimes when I've had a bit to drink, the whole notion of getting out of clothes and putting pyjamas on is an idea which is too difficult to comprehend. I'll get halfway through the task and then just give up. Unfortunately, this had been one of those nights.

I scrabbled about on the floor for my clothes and couldn't for the life of me find any. I don't even know what I'd done with the ones I'd taken off but they weren't lying in their usual heap beside the bed. At this point I thought the important thing would be to find Mum, who was still in her bedroom.

I grabbed my single duvet and wrapped it around myself, holding it with one hand at the small of my back and came out of my room. Mum was standing in the door way of her bedroom with the phone in her hand.

"CALL THE POLICE!" She screamed at me.

"What?! You've got the phone, you call them!"

At this point I turned round to see an absolutely enormous man coming up the stairs. He was seriously huge.

I'll never really know if it was the drunk that made me do the following or if this would be my natural reaction. Maybe a little bit of both.

I stood in front of him and pointed my finger in his face.

"Get out of this house immediately" I said, in what I can only describe as my most imperious, regal voice.

He stood looking at me with more than a hint of confusion on his face.

"Go on! Get out now." I was reprimanding him in much the same manner as you would a naughty puppy who had trampled dirt into the house.

Mum told me later that it was the most ridiculous sight she'd ever seen. My hair was all over the place, my backside was hanging out of the backc of the quilt and I was pointing at this ridiculously massive man like Queen Boudicca, commanding him to leave my domain.

He still looked a little confused but started to back down the stairs.

"Right! I'm going to phone the police" I said, and marched into my Mum's bedroom, taking the phone from her and calling 999.

Luckily for us we lived seconds away from a police station and the police were round incredibly quickly. Now dressed, I was at the front door, waiting for them. As I described the man they looked at each other. "We know who he is, he's just walked into the station."

It turned out he was a gurkha, out on a night out from the barracks near to Hull. He'd got ridiculously drnuk and had just decided that our house was his house and had broken in. This would explain the very confused look on his face. Imagine you've come in to what you think is your home, you've climbed the stairs to come to bed and instead you've been faced with two screaming women, one of which is holding a quilt around her, telling you to get out. I kind of feel sorry for him.

So it all ended well. Yes we were supremely lucky that it was a confused drunk personand not a burglar or raging lunatic. Yes Mum was very lucky that I was living with her at the time because God only knows what she would have done if she was on her own. She later told me that the reason she hadn't phoned the police, despite holding the phone in her hand, was that she had literally gone blind with panic and couldn't see the numbers. And yes I have been gifted with the ultimate bravery story that proves that alcohol isn't always a bad thing (unless it means you sleep naked).

PS When I think about it, the above events took place in the space of approximtely 30 seconds, from Mum waking me up to me ringing the police. It might even have been less than that. I guess it's true what they say about time slowing down. It's bizarre how I can remember every, single second of that moment as if it happened yesterday.

Running away to the south

There were a few purposes to this weekend;

1. See my cousin and reconnect after a ridiculously long time apart
2. See some old friends
3. Have fun
4. Running away

All 4 outcomes were successfully achieved. If they were written on a list I would have ticked them all off and I’d be feeling a warm glow of satisfaction. (I kind of now wish I had actually written a list. Is it ok to write and list post-event?)

I know running away doesn’t solve anything and you have to face your problems sooner or later but sometimes you can over-think issues and I am most definitely bordering on that at the moment. Sometimes you have to just remove yourself completely from a situation just to give your brain a rest and that was most definitely accomplished.

It would be boring to recount the whole weekend’s activities and there aren’t many photos I can show you. I mean there were plenty of photos taken but very few blog appropriate ones :)

At times like this you need a list to briefly and snappily run through things so here we go:

Friday
- Picked up from train station by cousin, made lovely meal, sit down to have nice civilised meal with cousin, one of her housemates and other friend. A polite game of Cranium is mentioned.
- Someone else mentions going to the pub down the road for a couple of drinks
- 4 bottles of wine at the pub later we roll back down to the house, causing minor disruption to the incredibly sleepy village of Coombeinteignhead. (Apologies to any residents who may come across this blog in the future. Especially the guy whose Landrover the other girls tried to climb on whilst I took photos.)
- Somehow end up with the 19 year old barman back at the house (who clearly thought his luck was in with 4 drunk older women. You have to admire him for trying.)
- Break table, trying to dance on it
- Kick barman out after having made him strip down to his boxers (don’t ask why)
- Get to bed about 4.30/5.00am

Saturday
- Wake up at 8.30 feeling surprisingly chipper, get up and get changed, feeling full of the joys of spring
- Retrace steps back to the pub to try and find my phone which had mysteriously disappeared
- Realise that I was still drunk and slowly sink into the hangover from hell in front of Saturday Kitchen.
- Have cup of tea and feel spirits rallying
- Find phone behind cushion. Have no idea why I wouldn’t have looked there in the first place, a clear indication of the effects of excessive alcohol on the brain.
- Discover that we somehow managed to get through 10 bottles of wine amongst the 4 of us.
- Ponder why we aren’t all in acute liver failure.
- Get ourselves to Paignton Zoo at lunchtime, looking and behaving like two Witches of Eastwick, hissing at all children who made too much noise or got in our way (we’re normally very nice girls)
- Laugh at the lemurs, stroke some goats and decide that the baboons are our favourites.

- Powernap back at home
- Dinner at Coombe Cellars which was so beautiful I couldn’t even capture it properly in a photograph, although I kept trying.

Sunday
- Back to Coombe Cellars to meet up with an old friend of mine plus husband, plus child.
- Lament the fact that we only have an hour before I have to catch my stupid train back home.
- Laugh and coo over friend’s child (see, told you I was a nice girl normally, just not with a hangover)
- Dash to Newton Abbot train station to begin epic journey back to Hull involving 3 trains and a bus. Ridiculous.
- Realise I’ve got a grand total of about 8 hours sleep over the weekend and will most likely die at work on Monday.

So in summary:

Laughing so much you choke + many bottles of wine + zoo + good friends = Quality Weekend

Did reality hit me like a sucker punch to the gut when I came home? It certainly did. But with this many things to reminisce about I can put off thinking about things for a while longer yet.

A tale of two cousins

Once upon a time there was a child born unto a man.

And lo this child was a girl and there was much rejoicing because she was a) a girl, b) the man’s first child, c) the first child born unto the man’s side of the family and d) she was frickin’ brilliant.

And this girl led a wonderful, charmed life, doted on by all who gazed upon her and much lauded and praised by all who spent time with her.

Then, a mere 14 months later, the man’s sister had a baby, another girl was added to the family.

“How wonderful” they all proclaimed “Little girl cousins, so close in age, they will be the best of friends.”
Wrong.

The eldest cousin was, to be frank, a bit of a spoiled brat. She was the worst of combinations, a youngest child and also sort of an only child, having 2 much older siblings.

The cousins didn’t see that much of each other, the eldest lived in Hull and the youngest all the way down in the deepest realms of the South, also known as Devon. So when they came together it was usually for week long holidays.

The youngest cousin ruined everything. She was cuter and younger and always got her own way. This displeased the bratty older cousin who was used to all the attention.

This photo aptly demonstrates the 2 cousin’s relationship:

The eldest cousin wanted the yellow bag with the red strap. The youngest cousin was given it. Not. Fair.

Sometimes they got on. Usually when the youngest cousin adoringly followed the eldest cousin about.

As time went on they grew up and grew apart. The eldest child didn’t speak to her Dad for many years and lost contact with that side of the family, she didn’t see her little cousin for a long long time. When they got back in touch everything had changed.

The eldest cousin was no longer as much of a brat. Or at least she hid it better. This was a good thing because the youngest cousin was now ridiculously attractive, could dance, and was studying to become a Doctor. This would have pushed the eldest cousin over the edge had they been younger.

And they now had the ability to become very good friends, the closeness in their ages was a positive and they were actually very similar – mainly because they both liked a drink and shared a rather evil sense of humour. (And they also now united in a dislike for the littlest girl cousin, who came 5 years late to the party.)

But still the distance kept them apart. And the price of train fares in this stupid country. Until eventually, the eldest cousin figured that God invented credit cards for this exact reason and booked a ticket to go and see her younger cousin, now a real-life Doctor, and living by the sea in a far off place known as Newton Abbot.

See you after the weekend.

Oh wait, didn’t I tell you? That story was about me! I’m the eldest cousin. Aren’t I hilarious and clever and still obviously the best cousin? (say yes say yes say yes)

Easter and Birthday Review

The celebrations are over for another year and next time my birthday will be all my own (well apart from the billion other people that share it).

I'm not really in a wordy mood at the moment, got a lot going on in my head at the moment which makes it virtually impossible for me to string sentences together. Not sure if this is the place to air those worries or not, that's my next big decision.

BUT ANYWAY.

Easter saw us all down at my sister's for the weekend, all the family together. I always feel a little tense about these things. I don't know why, it's not that we don't all get along, it's just that sometimes I feel like I need to make an extra special effort to make sure everyone's having fun. I don't know why that is really. And I would normally go in to more detail and examine that in more detail, but like I said, head is not in gear right now.

Festivities of the weekend included;

- a trip to the pub (essential)

- a lark about Ashby Castle, which my youngest nephew absolutely loved. He could have spent hours there, running about with his little foam sword. We climbed all the way up to the top of the tower and waved at everybody down below.

- a lot of crocheting. Done a whole 12 squares now. I put them over Rowan the dog to get a feel for how they will look when they're all joined together.

- a little Easter egg hunt on Sunday morning for youngest nephew.

- lots of fun presents for me.

The boyfriend got me DJ Hero, which I've played so much I've given myself cramp in my left hand. We've got Guitar Hero already but I don't love it to be honest, I don't like many of the songs. This bad boy is brilliant though. Not only are the songs good but they're all mashed up together, you can't go wrong!

The boyfriend's parents also got me an amazing present. Some artwork that I've been lusting after for a long time. A metalwork picture of a shoal of fish.

It doesn't photograph brilliantly, I've tried taking loads of photos and none of them really do it justice. It's so beautiful, the colours are just divine and I can't believe they got it for me because it most certainly was not a cheap present.
Things may be a little quiet over here for a bit while I sort things out in my head. Alternatively there might be a post every day as I attempt to purge my brain of all its confusing thoughts. Just consider this a warning :)

The time Jesus stole my birthday

Birthdays are great aren’t they? That one special day when it’s all about you and everyone is nice to you and you can do whatever the hell you want.

Not for me.

I’ve had the unfortunate luck of being born at the beginning of April, along with apparently the entire population of the world.

Maybe it was all that summer loving that people get up in the month of August or maybe there’s truth in the notion that women are more fertile in that period and more likely to get pregnant and have their babies in the spring so they have the best chance of survival (hey I read it somewhere). Whatever it is, there are an inordinate amount of people born in the first week of April.

For instance, a brief rundown of the people whose birthday it is in the next few days;

Middle nephew – yesterday (1st April)
Best friend – Saturday (3rd April)
Me and my brother-in-law – Sunday (4th April)
Eldest nephew – Monday (5th April)

Do you have any idea how annoying it is to have to buy people other presents around the time of your own birthday? And even worse have to give them to someone?! It’s wrong. The day is supposed to be about you. If I’m honest I think the whole week should be about you but apparently that makes me sound spoilt.

Really I blame my sister for all this. She’s the one who chose to marry someone who shared the same birthday as me and then, as if that wasn’t enough, she selfishly goes and gets pregnant and has offspring on virtually the same days (actually the birth of Eldest Nephew is particularly funny seeing as my brother-in-law had been out for his birthday the night before, remind me to tell you that one some time). I mean it’s not really on is it – I was here first after all. Well, technically my brother-in-law was here first, by a good twenty years, but that’s irrelevant.

And I mean these are just the people that are particularly close to me. Our old next door neighbour was on the 4th. My Mum’s best friend is on the 4th. There were 2 girls in my class, one on the 4th and one on the 5th. My friend’s sister is on the 4th. There is hardly anybody who, on finding out the date of birthday, doesn’t go “Oh I know someone whose birthday is then!” And today I discover that Tabiboo is getting on the act with her birthday on the 3rd and Mr T’s birthday today!

There’s no escape.

Sometimes being born at this time of year can have its advantages – I was only ever at school once on my birthday (for my 18th and that was a half day) because it was always the Easter holidays but that actually just made birthdays pretty quiet because people were always on holiday or doing Eastery things.

Ah yes. Easter.

Easter has raised its ugly head once more. I mean it’s inevitable, you can’t escape Easter interfering with things if you’re born at this time of year. I was born on an Easter Monday after all. But this year, my birthday is not only NOT just about me but it’s been completely hijacked by Jesus. Like I can compete with some dude rising from the dead. Thanks a lot for stealing my thunder Jebus.

Of course everybody is busy doing Eastery things so no one was available to party like a rockstar with me, which is ridiculous because it’s a bank holiday and we could so have gone out and drunk the drinks and been hungover all day Monday, but alas it was not to be.

And, because half my fricking family have their birthday at the same time as me, I tend to get stolen away to do family things. You would not believe how many arguments there have been because I’ve wanted to celebrate my birthday in Hull, with friends, and haven’t been able to because that would make me the worst Auntie in the world ever.

So this is my way of saying goodbye to you for a few days. We are off down to my sister’s to do Eastery/family/birthday things.

No doubt I’ll come back with some stories to tell. AND I’LL BE A YEAR OLDER.

Just in case that one had passed you by.

How a little person sees death

The boyfriend’s sister was in a quandary about what to tell her daughter, who’s 4, about the death of her great-grandmother.

Little person was actually in the house when it happened, fast asleep in her bed (although there was a brief moment of panic when she woke up when the undertakers arrived to take the body away). The hubby is in the forces and when he goes away on shift, sister and little person decamp back to the family home for the week (no I don’t understand why either but that’s the way it is) so little person was well aware that Mutti wasn’t well and was in and out of the room all of the time.

His sister wasn’t sure what to do for the best; tell her when she woke up or just send her off to nursery in the morning like usual. She wasn’t sure how she would take it and how upset she would be.

It was decided that it was a play it by ear situation.

Little person woke up and went off to nursery, and it was decided that hubby (who was back that evening) and mummy would sit down and explain to her when she came home from nursery.

They picked her up, took her home and explained that Mutti had died and that she was now in heaven.

Little person’s response?

“Does that mean she’s not in bed anymore?”

And that. Was that.

The longest day

So on Saturday night the boyfriend and I were out for a friend's birthday (see I do take him out sometimes!) and he gets a call from one of his sisters to say that his grandmother had taken a turn for the worse. We knew this was coming soon, she had been getting weaker and more frail since January, when terminal cancer was diagnosed.

We arrived at his parent's house for the most awkward of all social situations - a bedside vigil.

(Is a vigil a social situation? I'm classing it as one because there is a group of people there.)

Unfortunately we all know how I deal with difficult situations. Badly.

'Surreal' doesn't even cover it. There we all were, grandmother in bed, death rattle in full flow, the boyfriend's parents, his sisters, the dog, boyfriend and me. Oh and I was fantastically dressed up, having decided to wear a fancy new dress out for the birthday. It felt a little bizarre to say the least.

Luckily the boyfriend's family is as inappropriate as I am and at one point we were all sat around the bed, drinking pink fizz, laughing and joking and talking about all kinds of things under the sun. His grandmother wouldn't have minded, she'd have been joining in with us a month or so ago.

Eventually it became clear that Saturday night wasn't going to be the night so at 1am we all decided to go to bed, I borrowed something to wear from one of his sisters and we collapsed into the boyfriend's old bed for a very fitful night of sleep.

Sunday morning dawned along with the realisation that the only clothes I had to wear were either a fancy dress or men's pyjama bottoms complete with inappropriate flap. Cue quick trip home in what was possibly the most hilarious walk of shame outfit ever - Hooters t-shirt, men's pj bottoms, 4 inch pink heels and the boyfriend's coat, carrying dress and last night's tights in a bundle in my arms. Just call me classy.

We were soon back to begin one of the longest days ever.

It's actually quite boring waiting for someone to die you know.

I felt a little awkward because of my position, I was the only non-family member there so I tried to do useful things while the family took it turns to sit upstairs.

When it got to about 9pm we decided we would make tracks and head back to the flat. The boyfriend got his coat on and headed upstairs to say goodbye.

Next thing I knew we were all upstairs. The time had come. And we were all stood around the bed as she passed away. I've heard horror stories of people's last moments and I was pretty afraid but actually you'd never have known, if it wasn't for the fact that I could no longer hear the rattle, I wouldn't have been sure she'd gone.

We opened the windows and brought up all the flowers in the house and sat around the bed for a while longer. I began to get a bit itchy at this point, I was very conscious that we ere sat with a dead body in the room and I wasn't particularly enjoying it. Especially when the boyfriend's Dad leaned on the remote control for the bed and for a moment it looked like she was sitting up - my worst nightmare realised. It did dispel the tension a bit.

Like I say, I was unsure of whether I should be there or not, I didn't know if this was a moment just for family and if I'm honest I would rather not have been there, I don't enjoy seeing dead people, it makes it harder to remember them when they were alive and that's the image I would rather have, but I just wanted to stick beside the boyfriend and make sure he was ok.

And actually I was glad I was there. I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to my grandma and for the past year and a half I've had a replacement who I saw more of than my own. Maybe the tears were a delayed expression of emotion for my own flesh and blood.

Or maybe they were just for a wonderful lady who was so incredibly full of life. It sounds trite to say that and I always feel a little inward roll of the eyes when I hear it but I swear it really was true. Last summer she was with all of us in France and in November she had a super fancy party for her 90th birthday. She loved nothing more than a glass of sherry (why do old people like sherry?) and watching the cricket.

And this is what we say to make ourselves feel bettter. "Oh she had a good life.", "Oh she had a long life", "Oh at least she's not suffering anymore". But beneath all that we still feel it's unfair and still think she was taken too soon.

See you later Mutti.

Christmas 2009: A quick review

3.30am: Wake up. Realise it's way too early to wake up the boyfriend and open presents. Wonder when exactly I'm going to grow up and stop behaving like a 5 year old.

4.45am: Still too early.

7.30am: Kind of too early but maybe if I stare really hard at the boyfriend's face he might wake up...

8.00am: HE'S AWAKE!!

8.30am: Open presents, get very over-excited. Make scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast. Feels a bit weird because this is the first Christmas I've not been with my Mum on Christmas morning. And the first time I've ever been with a boyfriend on Christmas morning. But the boyfriend does a pretty good job at making up for any weirdness.

11am: Get to Mum's for Christmas Dinner Number 1. Fred being a complete wuss for some reason and decides to spend the whole time hiding under Mum's bed upstairs, instead of enjoying things downstairs with us.

11.30am: Manage to coax Fred out from under the bed with his present, some catnip drops, he stretches his neck out as far as he dare and eats them before retreating back to his lair.

11.35am: Lily laps up all the attention and plays with all toys and winds herself around everyone's legs in appreciation.

1.30am: Food time!! Take it easy, remembering that I have to do this all again in a few hours time.

3.30pm: Off to the boyfriend's parent's house for Christmas Dinner Number 2. Crazy amount of pressies to open, they are ridiculously generous. But I love it.

6.00pm: Littlest person at the house suddenly throws up all over her lovely Christmas dress. It's put down to excitement and she's put to bed.

6.30pm: Ding ding! Round 2. Time to eat again. Manage to put in a pretty decent effort, have a tiny bit of everything, 1 sprout, 1 roast potato, 2 carrots etc etc and manage to get everything down. SUCCESS.

8.00pm: Littlest person throws up again, maybe it isn't excitement?

8.15pm: I ask if anyone would mind if I get in to my pyjama bottoms. I might have managed to eat all the food but an elasticated waistband is now called for.

10.30pm: Everyone's still sat around the table talking but I call it a night. The day has finally caught up with me.

4.30am: Suddenly wake up. Think to myself "Something is definitely not right here. Your Christmas dinner is about to make a reappearance out of one end or the other."

5.00am: Christmas dinner reappears.

6.00am: Christmas dinner continues to reappear.

9.00am: Still appearing....

10.30am: Get back to the flat, get in to pyjamas, lie on sofa and spend all of Boxing Day sleeping and watching rubbish tv.

3.00pm: Muster up the energy to sit up and play a bit of Band Hero, one of my Christmas presents from the boyfriend (we already have Guitar Hero but I hardly know any of the songs, I need something I little more....poppy!)

4.00pm: Must be over excited from sitting up and strumming, take a turn for the worse and have a sleep for a couple of hours.

6.00pm: Manage a slice of pizza. Who knew? Good for hangovers and vomiting bugs!

9.30pm: Go to bed to sleep it all off and try to ignore my stomach which has cramped so many times today I must have abs like Peter Andre.

Despite all the vomiting it was a lovely Christmas and I'm very pleased that at least I managed to hold off getting sick until Boxing Day so I got to enjoy Christmas Day at least. And I wasn't the only person to catch it, littlest person's Dad also went down later on that day with it so I didn't feel like the only one with a rubbish immune system!

Now come on - tell me about yours!!

Things I love about my house - Part 6

GRANDMA'S CLOCK

Two years ago today my last remaining grandparent, my Dad's mother passed away.

I always felt a bit guilty about my relationship with Grandma. When my Dad left my Mum I didn't speak to him for 4/5 years and consequently lost touch with half of my family. I didn't mean to, it was just one of those things that happened. I was young and at uni and yeah probbly a little bit selfish.

When I started seeing Dad again I went round one afternoon to see my Grandma and stepping into the house was like stepping into a time warp. I was immediately transported back to my childhood as all the familiar objects surrounded me. I remembered the books on the shelves and the pictures on the walls. I remembered where the floorboards creaked and remembered stealing biscuits out of the larder. I remember walking about the garden with Grandpa, who died when I was about 9.

He loved that garden and I remembered helping him clean the fish pond out one summer's day and trying to catch the newts while the next door neighbour's cat, Fat Cat, stood hungrily by.

I remember helping Grandma do the washing. She had one of those twin tubs and she would let me swirl the clothes around with the big wooden stick while I inanely chattered away.

But if I had to pick one ting that encapsulates all these memories it would be the clock.

I was obsessed with this clock when I was a little girl. I absolutely loved it and would sit staring, never daring to touch it, for ages at a time. It was just the most beautiful thing and I couldn't get enough of it.
When I first saw Grandma after the long absence I snuck into her room just to have a look at it again. Would I still love it? After all your tastes changes over 10 years or so.

If possible I loved it more.

I have many regrets about my relationship with Grandma. I should have tried harder, I should have asked her all the questions I wish I had the answer to now. What was it like during World War II? How did she meet Grandpa? What was their wedding like? All the things I was too young to ask when I saw her all the time and totally absent from her life when I would have thought to ask them.

I didn't get to see her much during her final months. Her house was flooded in the July 2007 floods and she went to stay with my Auntie down near Plymouth while the house was repaired. She got too frail and ill and never returned to Hull. She passed away in a lovely nursing home, where they took absolutely amazing care of her. I did speak to her on the phone a couple of days before she died so I'm pleased I got to say my goodbyes.

After the funeral I found out what Grandma had left me in her will. There was a savings account that she had opened when I was born and had been putting small amounts of money into ever since. And then.....

I got my clock.

When I got it home and I was examining it from every angle I looked at the bottom and saw that she had written my name. I think that clock had belonged to me for a very long time.

So although I have my regrets, most importantly I have memories that are all sealed up, ready to be opened whenever I glance at my fairytale clock.

Halloween 2009

1. A road trip down to the Midlands involving crazy traffic jams on the M1 and incredibly long-winded detours which result in the boyfriend's road rage reaching critical levels.

2. Special birthday presents for a big sister (it's a pink sapphire if you were interested)

3. Pumpkins (any Seseme Street fans out there who recognise two of them?!)

4. Playing with my most favourite dog in the world.

5. Trick or treating with little skeletons.

6. Stuffing our faces with Italian fare.

7. Retiring back to the house to share childhood memories which included Mum's horrific soup (and it must have been bad for all three of us to have a visceral hatred of it!).

8. Laughing so hard my face hurt.

9. Having group family photos the day after we'd got all dressed up and put our make-up on so we all looked tired and grubby.

10. Eating all the sweets from the trick or treating.

Ant & Bee and the Rainbow

Once upon a time when I was a little girl somebody got me this little book.


Ant & Bee see a rainbow one morning and decide to make their own out of an old tyre in the ground. They paint it and then they make swings to swing under the make-believe rainbow, which they paint. Then they play bat and ball over a net but the ball keeps hitting the swings so they sit on top of the rainbow and watch the sky until it gets dark and they go home.


Then during the night it rains...


And it washes all the pain off the rainbow and the swings and the bats and in the morning they decide to paint the rainbow all over again.


And at this point I would demand to be the read the story again. And again. And again. And again.


So much so that my Mum, Dad, brother and sister would hide the book from me so they didn't have to read it for the billionth time that day.


Fast forward to about 20 years later...


Now wheneverthe boyfriend's niece comes to see us she immediately asks for the "rainbow book" and we have to read it to her.


And then we have to read it again. And again. And again.


This weekend I knew she was coming round and we hid the book.


Shame on me.


(I decided that I would buy the niece her own copy of Ant & Bee and the Rainbow but a search online revealed it wasn't to be that simple. The books were first published in the 1960s and then reprinted in the late 1980s/90s but are now out of print. And on Amazon 2nd hand copies of the series are fetching up to £100 with the Rainbow book going for £42!! I clearly had good taste!)

Would you like a side of child with that?

A while ago I vowed to become a better family member and staying true to my word I arranged to go and see my brother. I was duly booked in to the diary for a month in advance. How privileged I felt. (Stop it, you're supposed to be nice person!) Anyway off the boyfriend and I went to York this weekend to see my brother and his family, including my youngest nephew, who's about 18 months old.

Now I’ve been an Auntie since I was 13 years old which is good because it’s been fun being a young aunt but has also meant that I’ve had the best natural contraceptive you could ever get. Seeing my sister pregnant and dealing with my nephews was all I ever needed to see to bring it screaming home to me that kids. are. hard. work.

Now , from time to time, my mind turns to the babies. I have friends that now have them and when my brother and sister were my age they both had children. Maybe I’m getting ready?

Nope.

My brother and his wife are shadows of their former selves. They’re having a nightmare with my littlest nephew who is currently refusing to sleep through the night, having the most horrendous temper tantrums over the smallest things and just generally being a pain in the backside. They admitted that at the moment they can’t go out anywhere because they couldn’t inflict him on anyone to look after. And if they do go out they can’t drink and have a bit of a laugh because dealing with him plus a hangover is a no-go.

This all rang bells with me. Last week as I lay dying on the settee wanting to peel my skin off because I felt so bad it did actually cross my mind. What would you do if you had a child right now? How would you cope? The answer is not very well, considering that a trip to Asda on that day nearly led me to have a nervous breakdown.

I’m also not sure that I’m ready to become one of those parents. You know the ones I mean. The ones who can only talk about their child and believe that you are as fascinated by their bowel movements as they are. The boyfriend and I sat through what felt like 4 hours of holiday footage at my brother’s which consisted of my youngest nephew eating ice cream, dancing to a song, sitting about....now I love him to bits but that’s a little bit too much for me. And you run out of encouraging noises to make after the first 20 minutes.

Add those feelings together and I think I have my answer really don’t I?

Not. Ready.

Also how could I ever think I could be ready to pro-create when I have trouble managing these two furry people?! They’re actually kind of similar, I have enough trouble with them keeping me up at night, and wrecking the flat generally – if this is a simulation I think I’ve failed!

(But then I could probably bore people senseless with videos and pictures of these two....)

This blog will change your life (Part 2)

Family is very important to me (actually I should probably scrap that comment because when is family not important to anyone?)

It is a strange one though - here are these random people who you sometimes have nothing in common with except the fact that you have the same DNA running through you. This makes it difficult at times to say the least.

Take me and my brother and sister for example. I have to admit that we don't talk to each other as often as we should. In fact, if I'm going to be really honest we don't talk to each other at all. The only reason we know what's happened in each other's lives is because of the one thing that connects all of us - Mum.

There isn't really an excuse for it. Except that there always is isn't there? There's always something. My sister is a big high powered business lady person and never replies to texts or e-mails because she never has the time. She then comes home to 2 children, (although technically there are 4 children if you count the dog and the husband) so she never calls and then I feel bad about calling in case I'm bothering her so that never happens. My brother? Well he's just selfish. I'm going through a bit of a not liking him phase at the moment which is new for me because I've always thought he was the bees knees. He used to do the whole protective older brother thing and although it frustrated me how mean he could be to some of my boyfriends, I secretly liked it. At the moment though, I don't know, I just feel like I don't have anything in common with him, we have a completely different set of values and most of the time his general attitude to life and those around him annoys the hell out of me.

So no-one calls each other and then it gets harder to call each other because you haven't called each other. So nothing happens until Mum goes over to see one of them and I say I'll go with her.

"You'd better not die" I said to my Mum a while ago (I say quite strange things to my Mum at times, it's ok, we're cool with each other), "if you do the three of us will probably never see each other again."

I laughed but it actually hit me hard inside because it was at that point that I realised. Although we might be totally different people and would never be friends in the 'real' world, we are connected, we do have something fundamental in common, and if blood isn't enough to keep you together then what is?

At around the same time as this dawned on me, my friend introduced me to the Nie Nie Dialogues and from there I started reading Stephanie's sister's blog, cjane enjoy it. As I said in my previous post, this family is something else. You couldn't help but want to be part of it. And in Cjane's writing the importance of family shines though. Whether she's talking about her husband Chup and son The Chief, or when she was blogging about having 3 of her sister's children live with her while her sister was in hospital, or whether she's talking about another sister dropping by, it's perfectly clear - she loves her family. She doesn't have a bad word to say about them. Which is strange because surely they must bug each other sometimes? Surely they must be different people?

Maybe they do, maybe they don't and maybe they are and maybe they're not but what's important is that they're family. It doesn't matter if you aren't the same people, there's a bond there that runs deep and must act as some kind of anchor, pulling you in whenever you try to go astray. I'm sure that if some calamity should befall us then the others would be there immediately, doing everything they could to help. But it shouldn't come to that. It shouldn't take a disaster to reaffirm what you should already know.

So taking cjane as my inspiration I vow to be a better sister. To be less consumed with my own worries and to think and do more to solidify the bonds between my siblings. I will be undeterred by the fact that when I ask my brother when I can pop over to York (which is about 45 minutes away from Hull) he will say that he will have to "check the diary" and I will want to beat him round the head with a club saying with every swing "I. shouldn't. have. to. make. an. appointment. I'm. family." I will just say "Ok. When's good for you?" I will be undeterred that when I call my sister for a chat and she doesn't really have anything to say she doesn't make any effort whatsoever to further the conversation and will let it get to the point where there are uncomfortable silences on the end of the phone. I will just continue to blather away until I run out of things to say.

And I will try and not bitch about either of them.

(On a separate note about Cjane's blog. What I really love about it, apart from all the schmaltzy family stuff I just talked about it are the lovely pictures she puts on there and most of all her writing style. She writes in a way I wish I could and it makes me more than a little bit jealous that I can't.)

Losing status

Just over 13 years ago I became an auntie for the first time.

I was only 13 years old so it was all incredibly exciting. My sister lived near Manchester and I remember travelling over with Mum and Dad to see my nephew for the first time. It would also be the first time I ever saw my sister cry.

Totally sleep deprived she was at her wits end with this small-ish (he was a 9 pounder!) red screeching thing that wouldn't sleep and wouldn't feed and just generally seemed awful. I was quite shocked. This wasn't what it was supposed to be like. Babies were supposed to be lovely and cute and adorable. Not aliens from the Planet Scream.

My Mum took control and sent my sister up to bed, took hold of her grandson and sorted him out, he quietened down and fell asleep and then he was passed to me.

I liked him much better when he was asleep and quiet.

And it was at that moment that I became a proud auntie.

I absolutely adored him and you know what? He adored me. I think because I was so young he could sort of tell that I wasn't like the big grown ups around him and was more like him in a way. He would come to me when he was upset, if I ever rebuked him he would burst in to tears and I would spend hours on the floor playing with Thomas the Tank Engine or dinosaurs.

Four years later the next nephew came along. I was 17 this time so was a bit more savvy, I knew what it was all about. His smallness (although again, not that small, this one came out at 10lbs!) and screechiness didn't scare me as much and I was less scared of breaking him when I touched him.

When I went to university in Manchester I was even closer so was regularly called on for babysitting duties. They loved it when I came round. I was officially a Cool Aunt. They would beg for me to go and pick them up from school and tell all their friends that I was their Auntie and I was at university and everything. It was a pretty awesome feeling thinking that 2 little people thought you were that ace.

However those little boys are now 13 and 8. And as they've got older, I've become less cool. I'm a 'grown up' now, I couldn't possibly do cool things - I have a job and everything now. The little boy that adored me when I was 15/16 is now up to my shoulders, has long hair and is beginning to grunt rather than talk. Nothing I do is ever going to be considered cool to this guy.

It's also a little difficult to relate to them. Having never been a 13 or 8 year old boy I don't really know what they like and don't understand the things they do like. Everything was much simpler when I could sit on the floor and build with blocks. Everyone can do that.

Mum's currently looking after them for a week during the summer holidays and they came over to have dinner with me and the boyfriend last night. I've gone from being the cool Aunt to being pretty redundant. My only use was making food and switching the X-box on. I can't even help them play the games because I don't know how to. I couldn't glue the bits of Warhammer figures together because I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

Enter....the boyfriend.

He immediately glued the scythe to the little metal figure and then set about impressing the boys with his skills on Guitar Hero.

I went and sat in the spare room and watched telly.

And mourned the loss of my status as cool aunt.

We took the boys back to Granny's later on and the youngest nephew came to me in the kitchen. He told me that he thought the boyfriend was really cool.

And it actually made me feel better. I might not be cool but at least I can supply them with a cool Uncle and that's good enough for me.

Turning back the clock

The boyfriend, me and the mother spent the weekend down in Ashby visiting my sister and her family. We had a date on the Friday evening with Calke Abbey where my sister had got us all tickets to the Back to the 80s concert that's been doing the rounds over the past few months. It was actually in Hull in East Park for its first date but I never heard about it.

I was a little apprhensive, although technically I'm a child of the 80s, having only been born in 1983 means that I wasn't quite into my pop music until we were in to the 90s. My knowledge of 80s music extends to what got played at the numerous 80s nights in clubs I spent my university life in.

However this was no ordinary concert. It's a little bit of an event in Derbyshire apparently. Everyone goes in big groups, little ones, old ones, and everyone in between, they bring picnic tables and folding chairs and fancy picnics and make a lovely night of it. There were chequered tablecloths a-go-go. We figured we could play them at that game and though we didn't have a fancy table cloth we did have fizzy stuff...

We stayed mostly up the hill but I ventured down to the front to see Peter Cox from Go West strutting his stuff and singing along to the only song I knew - King of Wishful Thinking from Pretty Woman.

I also boogied on down to Martin Fry from ABC.

Also there were Carole Decker from T'Pau, Belinda Carlisle (who was very tiny and hence could hardly be seen) and the headliners the Human League who were absolutely brilliant, my definite favourites.

The whole night finished with a spectacular firework display and I discovered that my camera has a firework function button which I put to good use...

The rest of the weekend was spent lazing about, going to the local Farmer's Market, playing on the Wii and eating good food before coming home on Monday with 2 nephews in tow who have come to stay with Granny for the week.

Ding! Ding! Next round

So the next big stage in the relationship is coming up....

THE HOLIDAY

We've conquered living together (well apart from a few issues around cleaning, watching tv, tidying up....yeah quite a few issues actually...) so now it's time for the holiday together.

To be honest it's easy peasy to live with someone because it's not like we see each other all the time, he's out of the house just after 6am and doesn't come back until nearly 7pm and then there's the computer to play games on, televisions to watch, pictures to cross stitch, blogs to write so even when we're both home we're not in each other's pockets. And there always seems to be something going on on a weekend (which is why there are still things that need doing in the flat) so we don't actually spend that much quality alone alone time together.

Well I'm about to get all the alone time I want with 7 whole days coming up in each other's company.

And not just each other's company...

All his family's company as well...13 of them to be precise.

Yep I'm being serious. All it takes is 3 siblings to have boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and children, throw in a couple of half siblings and a couple of grandparents and you have the recipe for a possibly very chaotic holiday.

Whlist I'm looking forward to getting away, really looking forward to it in fact, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a certain amount of trepidation that I'm feeling. I get on with everyone in his family really well but I don't know how well I can get on with them for a week. Non-stop. 24-7.

They're great they're just....very....fussy. I'm from a non-fussy family. Everyone does their own thing and gets on with it and there's no great pressure to do anything, everything will just work out. My boyfriend's family are pretty much the complete opposite - everything's a drama and there's a lot of "Well you can do this but you don't have to do it. You don't have to do it at all." (Meaning that if you don't do it you can be almost guaranteed a sulk) This is compounded by the fact that my boyfriend is pretty much a wuss when it comes to his mother. He can stand up in front of judge and jury and argue a case but he absolutely cannot say no to Mummy. It's infuriating. I can't be the one that says no - that'll make me the horrible witch who's stolen her son!

My hope is that in a crowd of 14 people, no-one's going to miss 2 of them if they sneak away for a little bit...

Take a deep breath and count to ten...

I would like to start this post by stating that I know I'm not a teacher. I have no desire whatsoever to teach people anything, I have no wisdom to share and most importantly I do not have the patience of a saint that is needed to do the above things.

I really really did not want to undertake the task of getting my mother set up on the internet...

My Mum was made redundant a few months ago and whilst she is looking for other jobs, she's only looking for part-time positions, she was planning on cutting down her hours once she hit 65 anyway and is only 2 years away from that so she's trying to look on things positively.

Unfortunately she's not had any luck yet and decided to get a laptop and get hooked up to the internet to aid her job searching.

Now yes she is knocking on a bit but she's not totally daft and used the internet at work all the time. And the amount of stupid forwards she used to send me means that I know she has no trouble using e-mail.

However things are a little bit different when you're using the internet at home so I went round the other week to set up her dongle and show her how to connect to the internet. I also set her up a hotmail account because the only e-mail address she's ever had is her work one. I then talked her through everything she had to do to make sure she could log on to Hotmail and get in to her e-mails.

And I did this pretty well. I was patient. Despite the fact that my student was clearly not paying any attention to me.

Lo and behold. Two days later, when she decided to try it for herself, I got a phone call at home.

"It's not working" she says.

10 minutes later and just when I was at breaking point I figured out the problem.

She hadn't connected to the internet.

And it continued over the weekend....

So I went round again yesterday. This time I came prepared. I spent my precious lunch break making her a beautiful document with step by step instructions on it. Number one on the list was Turn laptop on (I wasn't taking any chances). I even had lovely pictures in the document of the actual internet window she would be looking at if she was following my instructions. I even put helpful big, black arrows on certain parts of it showing her where key things are. (e.g. THIS IS THE INBOX. CLICK HERE.)

I had all bases covered. I gave her the instructions and sent her forth telling her that she should do what it says on the paper, in that order, and only call me when something went wrong. I would meanwhile busy myself playing with Fred and Lily.

She kept calling me to the laptop. I kept referring her to the document.

Mum's problem is that she doesn't actually read instructions, much the same as she doesn't listen to instructions.

I made her do it several times and confidence that I had it nailed I came back home.

Cue phone call this afternoon.

"It's not working. I'm doing everything and it's not working"

After 15 minutes on the phone where my temper gradually frayed and Mum continued to insist that she was doing everything on the list as it was written down and it wasn't working. I continued to tell her that if that was the case everything should be working because her internet is not magically different to everyone else's.

I eventually figured out the problem.

There wasn't a problem. Everything was as it should be. "I know that there's a picture in those instructions that shows you the screen you should be looking at Mum" I said. "Are you absolutely sure it's not on there?"

Silence.

"Oh. Well that bit's over the page."

I just didn't know what to say at that point.

What is most infuriating is not just that she's finding it difficult. She's not of a technological age, that's fine. What is infuriating is that she is more than capable of doing this, she's not stupid. Her problem is that she convinces herself that she can't do it and that it's going to go wrong. You couple this with her inability to follow instructions and you have a recipe for disaster. It's never going to work if she thinks it isn't going to.

It's funny really because she's spent so much time telling me that I should believe in myself and that I'm more than capable of doing things I don't think I can, that she seems to have forgotten to teach herself that valuable lesson. She constantly thinks she's incapable of doing these things and the fact is she isn't. She didn't think she could cope when Dad walked out on us when I was 16. But she did. She didn't think she could cope when she got made redundant the first time. But she did.

Somehow these life lessons haven't completely permeated her brain yet. Hopefully they will do some day.

Until then, I live in fear of the phone ringing and hearing the words "It's not working"...