I feel so sorry for my mum. She fell in love with the film "sound of music" when she was little and has wanted to go to Austria (where it was filmed) for years. So last year my auntie suggested that the two of them go for a year. My mum was so excited, it was a dream come true for her.
Anyway they came back yesterday and I've just gotten off the phone with her. She told me that although she enjoyed it and is glad she went, my auntie was really mean to her, snappy at her every 5 minutes and being quite nasty. One night my mum said she cried herself to sleep. I feel so sad for her BUT I can sort of imagine the situations in which my aunt snapped and I feel awful for it.
My mum just doesn't realise how annoying she can be. She nags constantly "what time are we going there?" "what time does that start?" "where are we going next?" "where did you say we were going next? (repeat 3 times)" "where are we going now?" etc etc and it really is constant. Not only that but she faffs so much with stuff, she got a digital camera for christmas and still doesn't know how to work it. Instead of just sitting down with it one night to work it out, she takes it places she will need it and then stands there saying "oh it won't work?" "how do I do it?" "what does this mean?" "why is it doing that?" every 5 minutes. This caused me to snap quite badly at a recent karate tournament my son was is as she was expecting me to prat around with her camera when my son was fighting.
And then there's her hearing. She's almost deaf in one ear but refuses to wear a hearing aid so she's constantly asking people to repeat themselves. On this holiday she said there were a few occasions where my aunt was laughing and joking with other hotel guests and my mum was laughing along, 5 minutes later my mum asks my aunt "what did she say?" and wonders why my aunt got irritated and snapped "I don't know".
I do really feel for her being so upset but I know what I'm like after 2 hours of shopping with her so I can imagine how irritable my aunt had become (search for a recent thread of mine regarding DSs karate tournament for a big example of how she can frustrate you to the point of snapping).
I once went to lego land with her (during summer hols so was expecting it to be packed) and BEFORE we got there I told her I wanted to head straight for the rides when we got in otherwise the kids wouldn't get on anything. She agreed. Anyway the gates opened at 10, huge crowds rushed towards the rides and my mum said "oh hang on, I need to get a film for my camera" so we went into the gift shop. She faffed around in there for HALF AN HOUR decided which one to get then when we got out I tried to head to the rides and she called me back saying "hang on, how do I put it in the camera?" another 10 minutes spent doing that then finally we were ready to head for the rides..."Hang on, I need to get a drink...lets just go in this shop". By time we got to the rides the park had been open for over an hour and all the queues were too long to get on anything.
Am I a terrible person for understanding why my aunt snapped? Are we all giving my poor mum a hard time for no reason?