Ok so I am English and I think that that there are vegetables in London, England, UK and Europe in general. But IL’s, mainly MIL have been bleating on for the last 13 years that there aren’t any. At all. It normally just irritates but this time it's become part of a larger issue.
Background - IL’s and DH are Australian, we met in UK, when IL’s came to visit they would travel and eat out a lot, mainly opting for steak and chips in restaurants, when they came to ours I would cook a normal meal involving plenty of veg - so they know and have eaten vegetables in the UK (even if that was not their choice).
When DH and I were still living there they would come out with this line that there are no vegetables. We moved to Australia 8+years ago. Now at least four times a year, when sitting down to dinner with other people (never when it’s just the four of us, she needs an audience for this to work) she will bang on about their travels and that there are no veggies in England/Europe, this last time it was just London. They know this is not true, they know I find it really rude to keep going on about it. It is sure to get a rise out of me. As MIL was an English/Communications teacher she knows how offensive her phrasing is. Compare ‘There are no vegetables in your home country ('tis a miracle you didn’t die of scurvy)’ to ‘we struggled to get our five a day because we chose to stuff our faces with meat and chips’. So I think it’s deliberately done to get a known reaction.
The last time comes with a further background of birthdays and christmases being manipulated to ensure problems and upset, these are whole threads in themselves. Including organising the secret santa for all 10 grandchildren (presents bought between aunts uncles etc) but then telling my DS(6)’s secret santa not to bother getting him anything! On Christmas Day I find him crying as he watches his brother and cousins opening their presents and he has none, MIL pipes up with ‘oh I thought this might happen’.
So now they are upset at me because I am offended a lot, I got shouted at that they are ‘on tenterhooks all the time because they don’t know when they might offend me’ (try not eating my DS(5)’s birthday cake before I’ve even got to ice it grandma!)
1 So really Am I Being Unreasonable to think that they are deliberately trying to offend me/upset my children so can’t be too surprised when we're offended/hurt by them. I quite possibly Am Unreasonable, and way too sensitive, I will accept that.
2 If IANBU please give me witty responses (I don’t think they’d get the nuance of ‘did you mean to be so rude’) to cheer me up.