"Media centre" ffs.

[BubblegumBrigade]

Packing up to spend Christmas with my PILwhom I do generally like and get on with.

BUT, I am already in an irrational rage about three things:

1, They took out their table from the dining room a few years ago and put their television in there with two chairs facing it. There are book shelves lining the walls. The stereo is in the living room. This is all fine, except they insist on calling this shabby, cramped little room with a telly in it The Media Centre, in a very smug sort of way. Each time they say it I want to scream at the ridiculousness of it.

1. They will produce something completely ordinary for lunchtimes (such as cheese with those part-baked baguettes that you finish off in the oven) and then go ON AND ON for the whole meal about them, as though they were caviar encrusted venison steaks. "I must say, it's lovely to have warm bread. It's lovely, isn't it? Isn't it lovely everyone? I do love warm bread." (DP and I always cook the dinners btw, and I am very grateful for the lunches. I just don't want to be required to have an orgasm over perfectly unremarkable fare)

1. They insist on cloth napkins for every meal. Fine, no problem with this. The thing is, they only have one cloth napkin per person, so we are expected to wipe our hands and mouths with it and then store it inside the napkin ring for the next meal. This continues for at least four days. It makes me heave, especially as we have under eights, who turn napkins into a Pollockesque mess after a single meal. We are not allowed to use kitchen roll instead as it is "common".

I am not being unreasonable in finding any of these things entirely maddening, am I? I intend to be nothing but gracious and grateful and enjoy their company, of course, but I need to know that I am entirely justified in having an internal NOITSALLWRONGANDTERRIBLEAREYOUMAD alarm about these things. DP thinks I should just be able to let it wash over me as mild pretentions/eccentricities, and feels I am U to become so riled.

My MIL decants own brand washing up liquid into a Fairy bottle. When I walked in on her doing it she blustered that the (very slightly) smaller bottle fit better next to her sink.

Carol that link you just posted has explained to me for the first time what napkin rings are for!

I thought the point of them was just presentation - to give you your napkin in when you first sit down at the table. I had no idea the point was to use the ring to put the dirty napkin back in!

(I have never owned a napkin ring myself - not sure whether that's because I'm too posh or too common)

Another one who never understood the reason for napkin rings.

They were just something we didn't have that I coveted from a proley POV.

The idea that people used them to put dirty linen back in them? . Can that be true?

I dismally fail the test on those threads about how often you change your sheets and towels but I will now point to that link as proof that I am quite classy on the table napery front.

BTW, re the posh restaurant I had my sneezing fit: whenever you leave the table to go to the loo or have a fag outside, they deftly fold your cloth napkin into a pyramid shape and leave it by your plate. If it was heavily stained with food or snot they would discreetly replace it.

They also do that thing where they scrape crumbs off the tablecloth with a silver-coloured metal device. I think the waiters are far more couth than me.

Bubblegum. Clearly, you need to pack:
Kitchen roll
A large bean bag
Some DVDS
Crisps & Mars bars.

Have a good Christmas!

My mother has 'The Summerhouse'.

It's a shed.

Crying laughing at Sky Parlour!

Perplexed -- my MIL also has a 'summerhouse' thats a bog standard shed. She goes on as if it's another wing of her stately home!

DH's is The Gazebo. Me:hut.

I know exactly what you feel like, OP.

Both sets of ILs use napkins.

PIL and stepMIL just buy paper ones and chuck them around freely. They are pretty messy eaters (the wine, I think ) but don't make a fuss about them. I can live with this although they do clutter the table up - for people who love their food it is quite unreasonably small.

MIL OTOH has posh linen ones, and after producing a meal (lots of rushing around backwards and forwards to the kitchen, she doesn't delegate, prefers to do it all herself) will leap up just as the first bite is about to hit your lips, and produce them with great fuss and ceremony. And yes, they get re-used (boak).

Having been brought up to eat tidily I simply place them to one side out of the way until the meal is over..

Sorry I'm still fucking crying at cinnamon and gooseberry yoghurt. sings Jerusalem

OP yabu I have a room in my house called the 'room of requirement' stolen from Harry Potter since dumping ground or pigsty did not seem to do it justice.