The CrepeVine

[MrsSchadenfreude]

How did we finish the other thread so fast...? Less than a month.

DD and DS would both love to see Rihanna. Not sure I would

Haven't spoken to DH about 8th yet as he went to footy last night and I went to the gym this morning, but the calendar looks OK....

Just got back to Paris. Funeral was very sad - the saddest part being my uncle, who seemed to have aged about 20 years and shrunk by about a foot. He kept crying and saying "I loved her so much." DH was (surprisingly) brilliant with him (uncle has dementia) and sat patiently with him for hours, talking, while my cousin and I kept my mother under control and sorted out other stuff. The DDs were very sad - DD2 especially as she has always had a special bond with my Aunt.

On the plus side, I saw loads of my family (some I've never met before!) and caught up with my favourite cousins, and am looking forward to seeing more of them when I am back in London. DH has a very small family, so just doesn't "get" mine. He said to me at one point, how does C fit into your family? So I said, C's Dad and my Gran were first cousins, but C's Dad was brought up by my great Gran after C's Dad's Mum died when he was a baby. That makes C and my Mum second cousins, C is my first cousin once removed, his kids are my third cousins and the DDs' third cousins once removed. He was like this > . And to add to the fun, there were about four languages being spoken.

We went to see schools yesterday, and heard today that DD1 has been accepted at her school of choice as a 5 day boarder. DD2 is not terribly sure about the school we looked at for her, although we thought it was perfect. I am tempted to show her somewhere single sex, hot house and with a rigid uniform policy in contrast...

MrsS

DP, weirdly for a Nice Asian Boy, never gets complicated family either.

Oh MrsS, I have a lump in my throat re your uncle.

Great news about DD1's school I'm sure DD2 will get excited about her one too!

Neither DH nor I have large complicated families/ Mine is depressingly small, actually!

Oh MrsS, how .

What languages do your family speak? I always longed for a multilingual family when I was young. My father spoke a bunch of languages, but kept them all to himself most of the time and went to great lengths to avoid all his relatives. My mother was the exact opposite: monolingual and an excess of relatives. Most of whom I will be seeing this Saturday at the Big Party. DM went to the memorial service for her 7th cousin last week.

Nice to hear that the school visits were at least 50% successful. Will DD2 come round, d'you think?

I am doing the job from hell. I am struggling to resist the temptation to crack open the Sauv. blanc to numb the pain. It won't help, but damn this thing goes on and on and gets worse and worse. It's a tidying-up-someone-else's-mess job and it's not pretty.

BTM, are you in training for something??

My mum is now a renowned translator from the language she didn't bring us up to speak

Oooooh, very impressive.

Bit annoying about the missed opp for bilingualism, though.

Errr yes.

Stropps, no! Just doing the usual, trying to get keep fit

I have a friend whose DH is French. He refused to speak French to the DC

Stropps, no wine till you've finished!

Booo! The dragon icon has gone

Strops - German and Hungarian, mostly, with Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats and Turks marrying in. All at the funeral spoke English, but there was a bit of German and Hungarian in the sidelines, and me speaking bad Romanian to my cousin's wife. My uncle also speaks Russian and Polish, and I suspect a few others. I find it odd when some of my cousins are completely bilingual, but others don't speak the second language at all. I am not sure how that works. One of my cousins has only ever spoken German to his father, his sister speaks none and doesn't even understand it. Two out of three siblings speak Hungarian, but the third only has a very basic passive understanding

Where'd the dragon go?

Mrs S - glad the funeral went without a Hitch but so sad about your uncle. Your DH sounds great - I'm useless in that sort of situation - never seem to have the right thing to say.

I'm quite liking the sound of single sex, hothouse, uniform at the moment - fed up with french psycho teachers. They are bonkers - I'd board all my children in the uk if I had the cash. Even DH (french) is starting to come round to my way of thinking. Why take intellegent clever children and mark them down and down until they think they're useless and stop trying. This seems to happen all the time - 10 in the mock, 18 in the real thing. They think it goads them into working harder. It just results in depressed panicky children .

My Dad speaks fluent spanish and never bothered to transmit it - although in fairness it must have been difficult in the north of England.

MrsS dare we ask how your mother comported herself?

Hatty, that sounds GRIM. My two would be in pieces.

Oh yes! My mother!! Well it was all a bit touch and go with her (it always is), particularly as my 92 year old great uncle was there, and they haven't spoken for 30 years since they fell out at the funeral of my great great aunt. I said she should just speak to him, after all this time it would be silly not to, but she refused, and spent most of the time skittying around the house avoiding him, saying dramatically "Do you think he has seen me?" I heard him say at one point "Who is that old woman hiding in the corner?" and the person he was speaking to said "Oh that's the Dowager Mrs Schadenfreude." He said "Good God, I would never have recognised her, the years haven't been kind, have they?"

The church service wasn't Catholic, so she had nothing to complain about there.

She had a go at my cousin for "old purple hair" (her SIL) being in the "front" car, saying she wasn't family and shouldn't have been in it. I told her to butt out, it had nothing to do with her, and surprisingly, she shut up. I think she has gone home now, but has told my cousins she will be up to lend a hand if they need her - this caused us great mirth as she is known within the family for saying "I'll give you a hand with that in a minute" and not moving out of her seat until it's all done.

@ your great great uncle, MrsS! Sounds like she didn't do too much damage!

MI, DH has said he will take the DC to the outlaws that weekend, so I can come to your ball party. And there will be the 2 DC's beds free as well as the lovely guest room in the loft if anyone would like to flop at mine - only a shortish busride (or cab!) from MI's

I would very much like to take you up on that offer, BTM , if I may?

MrsS, from what you have told us of your mother it sounds like it could have been a lot worse.

Hatty, the French education system does seem very .. crushing.

It's a deal Stropps! You can have our lovely loft guest bedroom (with widescreen TV and x-box!)

Anyone fancy a DC's room?!

(Damn didn't get in fast enough) BTM if dp isn't in Belgrade can I doss in dcs room?
MrsS sounds like it went better than expected'!!!

Of course you can BD! Fingers crossed

I think the x-box will be safe. Thank you very much, BTM. Ooh, I do hope you can come as well, BD.

Still going cross-eyed with horrible re-writing. Dh was supposed to be helping with this, but he gave up after half a day and accidently on purpose took on a another job. I have just about completed 70 pages and have another 120+ to do.

I will leave BTM's spare beds to those more far-flung....although it sounds like a fun sleepover.

MrsS - the funeral sounded like a tough day, but it seems like your family all have the measure of your DM.

All this talk of multi-lingual families....with the exception of my DSB who married a Chinese girl there isn't one member of my family who isn't White Anglo Saxon. In fact, I'm surprised none of us have six toes.

Great, ruby!

Actually, both the DC have loft beds (good strong Stompa ones!) so I could put up more of you if you don't mind sharing rooms and someone sleeping on the foam/blow-up beds?! CV?

No-one none white anglo-saxon in our extended family either, although I can see that changing (for the better!) in the future if the DC's current bf/gf's are anything to go by

My sil is Indian so we have some non-Anglo Saxon in our family, but no language skills at all, but I'm a hopeful that ds might be good (he was doing Spanish and I'd like him to pick something up - Japanese?)