Not to eat dinner with inlaws tonight (what would you do?) (kind of trivial)

[struggling100]

Hey all!

Not a big problem in the grand scheme of things... but need some good ole Mumsnet advice on how to handle this.

DH and I are spending the weekend with the inlaws. It is a sad anniversary and we are going to spend time with his Mum, who lost her father a short while ago.

DH is working until 5, and the cottage the in laws have rented is 4 hours' drive from us, so we won't be there til 9.

Yesterday I send MIL an email saying that I was looking forward to it, and not to worry about food for this evening because we'd eat before we set off. Just got an email back to say not to do this, because she has a pie ready for when we arrive.

Trouble is, I feel really ill if I eat late in the evening. I come from a working class family, and I still eat breakfast at 7, lunch at 12.30 and tea at 5.30-6.00. The idea of eating pie at 10pm fills me with bilious horror.

Would I be unreasonable to decline the food? How would you handle this?

5Foot5 - I think is is about lifestyle. If you're a tradesperson who has to be at a job at 8 at the latest, you are going to need breakfast early. If you work a physical job, you're going to run out of energy quite quickly and need lunch early. Ditto for tea. And then after 8 hours of manual labour, you're likely to be pretty tired and in need of relatively early nights, I guess (I know I would be).

In the city where I live, a lot of the fish and chip shops in working class areas close after 6, because who would want their tea after that hour? Whereas when I lived in London, loads of people I knew didn't start work til 10, and didn't eat til 8 or 9, maybe later.

Say you can't guarantee getting to the cottage at 9pm if there is an accident or road works or sheer volume of traffic it could be much later. You don't want to make MIL wait that long to eat so please could you have the pie the following day.

You could stop part way on the journey for a snack, loo, change driver etc. I don't feel very hungry after a long drive either, especially if it's been a horrid journey, and am not a fan of eating very late.

high fives Euphemia

I remember I worked for a very posh but very nice lady once, and she always used to get really irate about me calling the evening meal 'tea'. (As in 'I'm just going home for me tea, guv').

'Struggling', she would say, shaking her head 'Tea is something that involves cucumber sandwiches and dainty cakes at 3pm. Your cooked evening meal is called your dinner'. 'No!' I would say 'Dinner is me lunchtime sandwich and pack of crisps. Tea is me pot noodle!'

She despaired.

Another one who thinks YABVU to not want a late night wine and stodgy carbs fest.

Lots of people have problems with eating later at night. I don't see why someone can't tell a relative (in-law or blood) something like that.

Late night pie? You're turning down late night pie???

Can I just say this is probably the first MIL thread I've ever been on where I think 'isn't everyone luffly?'. MIL just wants you to have a nice hot meal after a long drive, op is desperate not to hurt her feelings. Tis very refreshing and makes me want to sing kumbaya in an embarrassing fashion.

although op is clearly U to not want pie. Who doesn't want pie?

If I ever do the degree I didn't get to do first time around, I shall study Sociology and write my thesis on the class implications of pie.

Ah just ignore and say you were too hungry to drive safely (getting hunger headaches etc) after day at work, who ever heard of one adult telling another adult they cat eat when they are hungry, is she a complete control freak?!

I'd eat before and then treat the pie as a snack and eat what you need, even if that isn't very much.

No way could I wait until the late evening to eat.

Only in the sense that the OP got an email back telling her not to eat, and to wait in the pie... Personally I would have both, but I wouldn't not be eating if I was hungry, especially if I was ordered not to via email!

Are you my gran?

She's not being ordered not to eat. MIL is presumably thinking no need to fix a meal at 4.30 or 5pm, just wait till a later supper. Of pie.

This is a damn sight nicer than my BIL, who has been known to say "oh, I thought you'd have eaten" when we turn up at his at 7.30 having driven for two hours....that would be when precisely?

Toy with pie, have a glass of wine, beam happily.

If I turned up after a four-hour drive, having started at 5pm, and there wasn't anything to eat I would be most put out!

Yes, I'd be a bit like:

where's my pie?

Getting up at 8 extremely hungover and then having to look at old boring shit all day is a personal kind of hell for me

would be awful to me too.

@ wilson.

If we eat at 7pm or after (when I can't be bothered cooking for a while after work) dh always says 'how come we're eating with the posh folks?'

What kind of pie? I'm nosy and hungry.