It's a specific plea, but I will tell the whole story another time..Basically, after a very stressful few weeks with my mother (widowed young, been miserable and nasty ever since basically..) helping her move, being at her beck and call constantly, dealing with her moans about how she hates her new flat, when she hated her old place and I helped her get this one.. It is her birthday on Monday and dh and I had thought we would take her for a meal that night, as we have the, extremely rare, opportunity to have a whole saturday night and sunday off from the children 
We absolutely need some time together as it has been a nightmare these past few months for various reasons - mainly her though 
. Anyway she called the other night and said 'right so we'll all go out on Sunday - I cannot bear it here on a sunday so where shall we go?' I explained about the children going away, and dh and I actually, seriously, for the sake of our marriage to be honest absolutely needing some space on our own and that we'd thought about taking her out monday and she got sooo nasty. 'you knew it was my birthday weekend' she ranted. She then went all pathetic and said 'well, I'm used to being on my own' which is RUBBISH. every xmas, every birthday every time, we have to do stuff for her. I cannot cope for much longer. My sister hasn't spoken to her since March and I get the fallout from that too 'If your sister was talking to me...' Now I have to call her to say 'look, if you don't want to come out MOnday, we'll have to do it the following sunday' and I am dreading it...Tips ??