A Very Crepey New Year

[Cremolafoam]

Will this do ??

Beachy like you I don't think my upbringing was bad and I certainly didn't get the abuse MrsS did/does. My parents would never say anything like that! In fact my mother worried all her life that she had done badly by my Dbro1. It was tough but fair in our house - and, yes, I tend to treat ds the same - no time for snowflakes!

Dp can be very off hand and sometimes the 'banter' goes too far (been telling him this for years), but again that's how his family life was.

TGIF - been a long, emotional and frustrating week!!

My mum was very supportive during my childhood and teenage years, though in a practical rather than overtly loving way, but I'm not sure it redressed the balance is my childhood, when she didn't seem to like me very much.

And, indeed, once I'd grown up she would say repeatedly, and in public, what an awful child I was. Now I realise I wasn't awful, I was sad because my older sister had died. Then two new siblings arrived in quick succession, when I was four, and I was dropped like a brick.

A few years ago I grew some balls and when she started saying her 'awful child' spiel at a Christmas gathering told her to never say it again in my hearing as I found it very upsetting. And that if a four year old is awkward, it's not the child's fault.

Sorry, I was unclear at the begging of my tirade. She was supportive in my LATE childhood and teenage years

Sorry, I was unclear at the begging of my tirade. She was supportive in my LATE childhood and teenage years

Herbs that is sad - for you and your parents. Maybe she just couldn't deal with your grief on top of her own? (No justification I know) and these hurts (as these posts show) run deep.

I do worry about whether I'm doing similar to ds :(. But he's certainly better at telling me his peed off with us than I would have been with my parents.

Herbs So hard for you and your DM.

I think I have turned into a modern-day version of my DM - I used to cringe/rail/laugh when she sent me newspaper clippings all the time. Now I message DD with useful/interesting stuff on FB/t'internet

Oh Herbs . How sad.

I knew I was loved, but by unhappy and stressed parents. That is one reason I made the [non] career choices I did.

When do we find out if we got these things right?

Just racing in to say herbs thinking of your and DP today

Tilly This is a well deserved break....enjoy the spa!

I don't think I'll get into the parenting thing just yet...except to say it's very very hard being the eldest....

I am shortly off to the Kings Cross area for a full day course on Obs/Gyne After a week of cancellations and being thoroughly jerked around this will be most welcome...

Herbs thinking of you and dp today

Btm hv wonderful relaxing time

Beachy well done on fettingvthro exams

Give them hell mrs s. Terrible behaviour at work

We're heading fr m1 on way to seahouses. Dp in state of high anxiety I'm hoping will settle once we're out of london traffic

Beautiful morning

Herbs - I am always astonished at the number of parents who will say how awful/difficult their child is to all and sundry and often in front of the child. Why do people do this? In the end it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.

My parents loved us but were very strict and very unable to express emotion in that British stiff upper lip way. I think we were pretty well brought up in a stable environment, which, in hindsight I appreciate. I do think a little more softness and flexibility would have been good. DF did say "this is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship". He was joking but only just. Having said that lots of banter and fun and when I look at the childhoods of my parents - DM evacuated from Singapore as a small child on a ship alone with her sister I can understand a lot of her behaviour and it's really quite mind blowing. Any whining from us must have seemed comparatively trivial.

Well, yes, but frankly there's a point where I think parents should sort their own stuff out before making parenthood All About Them. My mother's desperate insecurities and need for Worship (which was more than adequately provided in her later years, of course) was directly linked to her mother taking her own life when my mum was two. But we were the people who had to live with the ensuing trauma too. When I think rationally I suspect I am not the fat graceless no-hoper I "know" I am. But it was quite important to my mother - not consciously perhaps - to take absolute centre stage and everyone suffered by comparison.

And I've put up with appalling treatment from men in the full belief (which to a great extent I still hold) that I can't expect anything better, because they can always find much, much better.

Sorry, am having bad day with Stuff on return from India. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

On a saner note, Herbs, I am thinking of you.

Actually all this makes me cry.

Particularly stiff upper lip stuff and not saying we love people....

Herbs much strength today.

So very sad, all of it. MI, sorry you have landed with a bump - remember what you achieved.

Herbs, thinking of you and dh. I hope it goes smoothly.

If anyone would like some S and B light relief on this dark day, I am in the market for Another Top, to wear with black jeans, for going out in (ie not a Woolovers jumper).

"They fuck you up your Mum and Dad ... they give you all the faults they had ... and add some new ones just for you ..." misquoted Phil Larkin - he nails it.

I can't remember my DPs saying that they loved me, but I am sure that they did. Looking back we had a good childhood, although there was not a lot of money around. We had a freedom which today's DC can only dream of. Last night when DSoniL came with DGD to pick up DGS at 5 pm, DGS spontaneously gave his DSis a cuddle, I saw him give her a kiss on the top of her head, and say, 'I love you'. So lovely. (He is nicer to her than she is to him!).

I hope today is going ok, Herbs? And I hope you enjoy your Spa Day, BTM; you deserve a treat.

Waves to Addle as she and DH drive past on the A1.

DH has gone cycling: I am slobbing out, but also on standby as DGD was sick this morning, DD is working, of course. DSoniL will come and fetch me (I still can't drive) if he gets any work in that needs doing. There is a bug going round and DH has been doing school picks up for both families so that the little ones didn't have to go in to school.

Rose, enjoy your course, and MrsS, have you had any comeback re the job?

I really am sick of obsessing/berating myself about food and weight. My worry is that if I don't berate myself I will expand to the size of a space-hopper. I suppose that might not entirely be a tragedy, of course. I could be a stylish space-hopper with killer lipstick.

I'm not actually going till tomorrow, but I am so looking forward to escaping!

Lovely sunny day here - Lalsy are you in a cupboard under the stairs?

I think Lalsy's darkness is foreboding about the inauguration of you know who.

New washing machine here. Hope it holds up for the six loads I have backed up for it.

I think I need reprogrammed MI. I struggle daily with the forceful voices of my parents coming at me for loading the dishwasher wrong, not changing the bed linen enough, not speaking to dd every damn minute of the day., not eating enough fruit. It's very difficult indeed to go against all the entrenched commands. But I do give it a good go.

BTM, Addle and all those off to other parts for the weekend, do have a lovely time. Hope I g for maximum niceness and lovely food.

I have no plans this weekend except to get well. I still feel pretty ropey tbh, but have forced self out of sick bed for dm, who is insisting on visiting me, because I am sick. It would actually be more use if she left me alone, but that is the ungrateful cow 🐮 in me I suppose. Poor dh is struggling on, but I can see his hinges are starting become unfastened .

Are we supposed to watch the inauguration of The Orange One today? Rather eat my own eyeballs.

Oh Rose thank you so much for the mini parcel which has just arrived!.! I will be retuning mine as soon as I can face a Post Office.

I read on the internet that they were giving away free joints and they were all going to light up during the inauguration. I am intruiged to see whether this happens.

The ecoonomy programme on my new machine is 4.5 hours long It will take half a day to do one load.

"Intrigued" dammit ignore bonkers spelling - I knew that lookes weird.

"Looked" - I give up.