My parents are going away for a fortnight. They have a greenhouse which needs an eye keeping on and a cat who needs feeding. My parents? neighbour does this for them when they go away, in return for which mum always brings her back a gift, as well as which she takes all the veg that is ready and any soft fruit (they are totally self-sufficent for veg) and used to take eggs too when there were hens. I pop up at the weekends to check that all is well, feed the cat and do the watering. Neighbour has started telling my mother that I should be the one to do this every day . Which would be tricky as I have a job and 3 young kids and I live about 20 miles away. She doesn?t mind doing it but feels that I am somehow failing in my duties - her DD?s would do it apparently which is hard to verify as they all buggered off asap and now live in France and Northumberland .
But what really bothers me is that my mum repeated it to me. She had a tendency to ?ahem?. ?embroider? ..stories a little to make a point, and now I wonder if she is trying to tell me something. They are very good to us, they look after DS#2 every Wed, and have done the same with other 2 before they started school. They had all 3 kids yesterday. But generally I am very aware that 3 kids is hard work for 2 elderly people so I don?t ask them to do that often..not more than 2 or 3 times a year. They rarely babysit at night because they normally go to bed too early really. So am I asking too much and offering too little in return? Neighbour is without a doubt a silly mare but she has planted a seed of guilt. What does anyone else think?