The land of the long goodbye

We all have them. Friends and family who have trouble hanging up the phone or walking out the door. They like saying the long goodbye.

Most of the time I have no trouble with this but then there are situations such as when I'm on the phone to long-winded friend Val on a work day.

Val: "Is that call waiting beeping for you or me?"
Me: "Me."
Val: "Do you want to get it?"
Me: "I should. I'm expecting a call from XYZ. Call you back in a minute."
Val: "OK, then, lovely to talk to you and I'll be waiting for your call. Love to G, and say hi to all the animals for me and..."
Me: "Ok." Nervously. "I'd better get that."
Val: "Okeydokey, I'll let you go, love you lots, talk to you later. Bye."
Me: "Love you too. Bye."
Val: "Bye."
Call waiting: not there any more

Seriously, that is a woman who can take five minutes to get her goodbyes done with on the telephone. It's fifteen minutes in person.

I have another friend called Phil who understands what it's like taking a personal call at work. If either of us say, "Gotta go!" we understand. It's a quick, "Bye!" and we both hang up. No offence taken on either side. Some people understand that when you've gotta go, you've gotta go.

Another friend The Wildlife Photographer was most upset when I had to ring off quickly one day several years ago. A shelf on my desk had given way, with heavy reference books tumbling down onto my computer. Yikes!  I explained what had happened, and said I really should go and check the computer. I attempted a quick goodbye,  but TWP believes in long goodbyes, and considered my rather urgent, "Very sorry, but really, I should go and check that nothing's broken. Can I call you back? Bye." the height of rudeness. When I did call back he was nearly in tears. I learned: there could be no short goodbye with TWP.  Your goodbyes have to be long and polite.

G is the same on the phone. Long goodbyes. Love to the animals, love to me, and he HAS to be the last person to say goodbye. I've tried teasing and tricking him by saying one last goodbye at the last second but he manages to get one more in, every time. He travels quite a bit for work and insists on ringing every night he's away, often staying on the phone for nearly an hour driving from one place to the other before a long goodbye (at which time I'm usually busting to go to the loo and hopping from foot to foot); I think he gets a bit lonely on his drives.

I hated saying goodbye to Mum on the phone when she was getting older. I worried about her a lot, and had the awful knowledge that one day she wouldn't answer the phone. With Mum, I loved a long goodbye.

I suspect I am more a short goodbye person than a long goodbye one overall, however. Short goodbyes don't have to be brusque; nor do they have to be impolite. With close friends, a "Love you, bye!" is to my mind perfectly acceptable on the phone and a hug and kiss in person; just the one, not multiple over several minutes.

What about you? Are you a short goodbye or long goodbye person?

Or are you the type who hangs up the phone without saying goodbye? I can't bring myself to do this; it seems horribly rude. I have only done it once, to a boyfriend who was soon to become ex, and I was furious at the time.

Just when I was nice and calm...

Google stuffs me round. It made me change my password last week. I then couldn't log in with the new password. So I made another new password. All seemed fine and dandy until I went to log in today to write a new blog post - and guess what, the bastard bloody password didn't work so I had to reset it AGAIN. Then it blocked me at the 'make sure your account is secure' page and refused my shiny new password.

My blood pressure is up right this minute and I'm getting a headache. Why does technology have to be such a bitch?

I finally got into f*cking Google with the latest incarnation of my password - obviously, or I wouldn't be writing this. Unfortunately this post has started off with a very negative vibe, when it's supposed to be a positive one.

Positive because I've had two positive experiences with two very nice women over the last week.

The first was last Thursday, when I went for a free makeup lesson I'd won at a women's networking event. Now, I've never let ANYONE do my makeup. I'm not into being made over as I know what I like and what suits me. I've seen horror stories performed on the faces of friends, particularly for weddings. Both brides looked like freaks when the makeup artists had finished with them. Foundation applied apparently with a trowel and so thick that the wrinkles stayed in place after they'd finished smiling. I was NOT looking forward to this lesson, when a woman I shall call The Imager was going to give me a makeover and show me how to do it myself at home.

I could have given the prize to a friend but I'd been talking to The Imager at the networking event about my new venture as a Jeunesse Global anti-ageing skincare consultant, and she was interested in getting into that and selling the products in her shop. So I had to go. I had to consent to letting myself be made look ten years older.

Reader, The Imager was lovely. And I didn't look a freak when she'd finished. She very much approved of how I usually do my makeup and more or less did the same on me, only with a bit too much primer and spakfilla as the foundation on my nose afterwards looked a bit odd. We got on very well; she's into natural healing and gave me the name of someone who may be able to help my psoriasis - as it's terrible right now in the middle of winter - and pointers for books to read. She's into asking the universe; very much someone I can relate to and talk with. She's also interested in my business but having sold her house the day before she's going to be busy for a few weeks!

The second woman, who I met on Saturday, I shall call The Witch as that's what she is, the leader of an international coven. She's lovely; such a friendly warmth about her. I saw her for a tarot card reading as she has a reputation of being one of the best in Australia. She pulls no punches and tells it like it is. I adored her.

I like to have readings from two or three people at a fairly close time; if they all come up with the same thing, it's likely to happen. I saw a tarot reader in February and have compared my transcription of his reading with the Witch's and I see some consistencies with both, such as:

• I will be doing business with a man. Could be a business partner, or a supporting role such as accountant.
• I'm not going to get rich with any of the things I'm doing but I won't starve either. Consistent flow of $.
• I had or was going to have a new business. The Witch shook her head and said, "You've got three jobs!" and gave an astonished laugh. 
• There will be travel for me this year (and yes, we are planning a holiday towards the end of November).
• Both said I "got the shits" with people. The Witch said I had a strong animal dreaming and only feel really calm in the company of other species ;-). 
• I will be taking a course in something creative. The Witch said University, but I can't afford Uni.
• G isn't that happy in his job and said that he would be doing something in the teaching line in the future.
• Mum is hanging around. The Witch said that was perfectly normal and while our bodies die, *we* don't.
• I would be purging people from my life who upset me; new beginnings, breaking away from people who disrupt my life. The Witch told me to stand up to Whingy, who showed up in the cards. "The choices you make regarding the people that shit you will liberate you. Choose how to respond to people. Whingy will bring conversations back to herself. Walk away from people like her who “use you as a fuckin’ wall”."

The Witch said I'd be going riding. I told her I used to ride but hadn't ridden in 20 years as I'd lost my nerve. "Get on a horse," she said. "You need to ride. Get on a slow horse." She told me I would be working with horses at some stage.

Both saw nothing bad in the next two or three years; the Witch told me any threat would come from the government, possibly the tax man, and told me to make sure I dotted every i and crossed every t with that. There's nothing hugely exciting there, no lottery wins, but on the other hand, 'interesting times' aren't what I want.

So until this morning I was calm and happy, delighted to have met these two lovely women. Just writing about them has calmed me down. I have to remember what the Witch told me when I asked her why I got the shits so easily and became so angry, particularly with technology: love is the key. My life is full of love and is basically happy. Just go the joy.

The haunted dinner party

It was my husband G's birthday last weekend, so I organised a dinner party with one of his friends, the Whingies and friends The Kayak Kouple (they are very much into marathon kayaking).

I was going to cook Boeuf Bourguignon, one of my absolute favourite dishes and G's too. I do a mean Bourguignon if I say so myself. A couple of weeks ago I bought beef cheeks from our local butcher and cooked a big pot up. It melted in our mouths. Divine! That was what G wanted for his birthday.

So my butcher cheerfully sold me about 2kg of beef cheeks, and I took them home and cut them up and marinated them in wine, juniper berries, bay leaves and brandy for nearly 24 hours.

Two hours before our dinner party they were coming to the simmer and the smell was divine. All going to plan.

As it's the middle of winter here I thought I'd get the log fire going as well as the electric heaters.  I'm a bit of a pyromaniac when it comes to log fires and can usually have them up and flaming very quickly and efficiently.

The bloody thing wouldn't light. I did what I usually do: scrunched up newspaper on the bottom with a tepee of kindling on top. The kindling was dry; it had been inside for a fortnight.

I struggled with it for twenty minutes then G took over while I got changed. Our guests arrived to find us both on our knees trying to fan the pathetic little flames into some kind of life. They helped. Between us all we spent about an hour and a half trying to get the bastard going before giving up as - joy! - the Boeuf Bourguignon, with new potatoes and a medley of fresh winter greens - was ready.

Proudly I put it on the table in a fresh casserole dish.

The bloody meat was tough as an old boot! Horrible! It had been cooking for around two hours and had determinedly retained every bit of muscle it had ever possessed.

Of course this WOULD happen when Whingy was over to dinner. She complained loudly that she couldn't cut her meat at least three times. I apologised at least five, feeling angry and embarrassed and worried that my reputation as a good winter cook with casseroles and roasts was compromised.

No fire. Crap meat.

I reckon Mum was on the go somewhere. She didn't like Whingy and probably, from wherever she is, still disapproves of Whingy visiting. I reckon she managed the fire if not the meat.

The Kayak Kouple and G's other mate took it all in good humour and everyone enjoyed the chocolate birthday cake I'd made for dessert. So THAT was alright. By the time I served the cake I had a horrible vision of cutting into it and finding it raw in the middle after everything else that had gone wrong.

It's perishing cold today, particularly in my office which doesn't get any sun. The sun's gone behind clouds and even the front of the house - where you can sit in the sun wearing a t shirt in winter - is chilly.

I'm going to try and light the fire. If it lights... well, I'll know SOMETHING was behind the goings on at our dinner party!

What would my aunt Betty have said?

My aunt Betty could be a bitch. She was a master at the backhanded compliment, or occasionally simply rude and abusive. In particular, her bitchy side came across if my mother (her sister) or my grandparents bought anything new. It could be an item of clothing, or a piece of furniture. Her middle name wasn't 'Jealous', but it should have been.

Betty hated people 'getting ahead' if she wasn't. Her rage at Mum's new car in 1979 was spectacular. Mum's previous car had lasted since 1963 and at that point I took it over and kept it in the family. Mum had been putting money aside for years to buy a new car and was so proud to be able to show it to her sister; she thought Betty would be pleased for her. Betty, of course, was anything but and accused Mum of stealing money from their recently-dead mother's estate to buy the car. Betty's car at that time was early 70s and huge, a big old V8 that gobbled up the miles and the petrol in equal quantities. Until Mum bought her new little hatchback, Betty was fond of jibing in a very superior manner at Mum's '63 Beetle, joking nastily about the size of the engine and little Herbie's hill-climbing abilities, and how much better her big Falcon was.

When I bought my first horse at 16, a heavyset but stunning white grey galloway, Betty was quick to sneer that she was going to buy her daughter "a horse of greater quality".  (It turned out to be an undistinguished bay and in all the photos she sent I never once saw it going properly on the bit.)

In the 1980s interest rates went skywards which was crap if you had a mortgage (Mum didn't) and great if you were trying to save. Mum's term deposits were doing well enough for her to spend a couple of grand on a new lounge suite and dining setting in 1985.  By that time, Betty had been dead nearly four years; her raging bitterness had morphed into an aggressive cancer which saw her in the ground only six weeks from diagnosis. Mum and I were not invited to the funeral.

I thought at the time Betty would have put a hole in the ceiling if she'd seen the lounge suite and new table and chairs. She was probably watching from above (or below!) gibbering with rage.

This week, nearly thirty years later, I have replaced the dining setting with an early 1960s setting which better suits this mid-century house. I bought the table and chairs from two different eBay sellers but thankfully the wood colour is a good match. I have the 1980s one for sale on eBay and Gumtree and nobody seems to want it (bugger).

G and I moved it in yesterday and stood back admiring it. The table is teak and by Parker; it extends to 215 cm.  The chairs are also teak, and the seats and spade-shaped backs are teal vinyl and in great condition; still padded after all these years. As I set them under the table for the first time Betty came to mind. She'd find fault with it or sneer that I bought a 'second-hand' dining suite.

We invited the Whingies to dinner. I told them we had bought some new furniture but wouldn't say what so I would have them intrigued. Mr Whingy, who came earlier in the afternoon to fix a couple of power points for us and install groovy new lights in the hallway, admired the table and said his mother had had one very similar. He loved the quality of the wood.

Whingy herself, however, was rather dismissive. "Oh, what was wrong with the old one?"

"It was out of place in this room," I answered. "This new one is very similar to the original one Mum bought in 1959. It suits the room better."

I was struck (not for the first time) at how very like aunt Betty Whingy is. I didn't need to wonder what Betty would say - Whingy said it! Like Betty, she never seems to be happy if someone ELSE gets something new - but you hear all about it in bold cap type if Whingy does.

Whingy, predictably, hated the chairs. "Oh, they're not as padded as your other chairs. They're very hard on my bottom. What's wrong with the other chairs? Why get rid of them?"

"I found the other chairs hard on my back, as they were very straight-backed. These chairs have a nice curved back," I responded politely, thinking, get some meat on your scrawny arse, you cow, and you won't find the chairs uncomfortable. "And I love the colour of these ones."

"I like the other setting." Whingy pointedly went and sat on the sofa while I dished out dinner, only returning to the 'hard' chairs to eat. I kept filling her wine glass. I find that helps. She's never as sour after a couple of wines.

Two hours later her grumpiness had faded to a grudging cheeriness but I was still marvelling at how like aunt Betty she is. I 'spoke to Mum' as I was cooking pudding - that is, I talked quietly out loud as I believe Mum still hangs around - and shared my thoughts on Betty and Whingy. Mum never really warmed to Whingy and thought she was rather like Betty, but I'd never seen the Bettiness so much in action as last night.

Anyway, I like my new dining setting. It's comfortable. It's beautifully designed and elegant. It makes the room look bigger and makes Mum's early-70s glass fronted teak display cabinet look like it belongs in the room too. I am not a fan of the display cabinet, but now I think I can live with it and it perhaps isn't as hideous as I think it is.

And here are the groovy new lights in the hallway. Whingy didn't find much fault with them; but by then she'd had a few. So I'll never know what Aunt Betty may have thought of them!

Dear children, you are NOT Michelangelo.

I spoke to my stepdaughter last night on the phone. She lives interstate and we occasionally have long phone calls - usually she needs someone to rant on to about something or other and often it's me or G.

My stepdaughter - I'll call her Mittens for no other reason than she likes that word - has two small children of her own. One is five and has just started school, the other is three.

They are very cute kids, and Mittens is strict on things like table manners. She's says she is pretty strict in general and doesn't cop much lip from them, except ...

She lets them draw on the walls of the living room.

I had Mittens on speakerphone last night and G and I exchanged glances when she spoke of their drawings.

"But it's okay," she said breezily. "They just use crayon or pencil. It's not like it's textas. I can wash it off. It took me a whole bottle of Orange Power last time to do one wall." Another eye roll between G and I.

"Do you ever tell them not to do it?" I asked cautiously. I have to be a bit cautious as Mittens balances being strict with being a Steiner-school, encourage creativity at all costs-type parent. She also has an absolute belief she is always right, a hangover from her teen years which aren't, after all, that far behind her. I don't want to get into an argument with her as I'm hopeless at arguments and she has a very quick mouth. I'd lose.

"Yes, but then they do it when my back is turned."

I suggested pinning big sheets of paper to the wall. She said she had tried that but the kids drew over the edges and onto the wall.

"There's a cute little bee Miss 5 has drawn above the sofa. I haven't the heart to scrub it off," she confided, almost proudly.

It's not that there is a lack of paper in their house. The kids are encouraged to paint and draw on paper. Why the hell she lets them continue to draw on the walls is beyond my comprehension. It's not encouraging creativity, it's letting them get away with something they know is wrong. They have been told not to do it again and again, and they ignore their mother and continue to draw on the walls.

If I had drawn on the wall, just once, as a small child, I would have had strips torn off me. I was told from a young age that you didn't draw on the walls, and was given plenty of paper instead. Mum was a kind but very strict parent. She didn't believe in smacking, and I was so keen to stay in her good books that a damn good shouting would have had me contrite and in tears and unlikely to do whatever-it-was ever again. (I was terrified that if I was a bad girl that Mum would run away as Dad did… nothing like an absent parent to keep you in line. Not that that was ever threatened by Mum, but who knows how the mind of a small child works except a small child?)

I confess, if Mittens' kids were my kids and I caught them drawing on the walls, they would get a bawling out they would never, ever forget. Bugger that modern school of parenting where you talk in a soft voice and tell little Jimmy or little Mary why it's wrong to draw on walls and that they aren't naughty children  (because apparently you are not supposed to tell children they are naughty anymore) but simply channelling their creative talents in the wrong direction. Nope. I'd tower over them screaming and reduce them to quivering wrecks, to get the message across that if I said No to drawing on walls, I meant No. I may even use my hand on their backsides, even though that's probably illegal by now.  I would certainly use the word naughty, probably again and again. I have seen my friends' kids grow up with modern parenting and turn into disrespectful teenagers who treat their parents with total disdain; 'whatever' is their favourite word as they ignore any household rules.

I would also lock up the crayons and other drawing materials and only dole them out when I was available to supervise how the children used them.

Which brings me to another of Mittens' problems. The kids get up early in the mornings while their exhausted parents grab another five minutes of shuteye, climb on benches and furniture, open the cupboards and help themselves. Sadly Mittens and her partner Guitarman live in rented premises and can't put locks on the cupboards. The kids go through Mittens' handbag and do fun things such as hide her house keys. The last time they did that she couldn't leave the house for three days. They mixed coffee grains with paint and painted the living room carpet one memorable early morn last year ("Oh Meester Harrrt!"); even worse they used a set of makeup artist Mittens' professional makeup brushes to do it, rendering them totally buggered.

In a way I'm sad that I only get to see Mittens and her kids once or twice a year, as when they are not drawing on the walls or getting into other mischief they've been told time and again not to do, they are lovely. Sweet and smart and funny. On the other hand, if they lived closer I would probably be a babysitter, and I don't reckon I'd cope well with those two destructive forces in my house. There's no bench they can't climb and no cupboard they can't open; anything I treasured would be broken in a day. And I'd be damned if I could stay at their house and watch their children draw on the walls.

A visit from Dad

I mentioned in my last post that I had an angel card reader come to the house recently for a morning tea reading party.

This was the second time I'd had a reading from her, and she is uncannily on the ball. 

During the reading she mentioned my Dad and asked if he had died after a long illness (he had: cancer).  She picked up a lot about my Mum, and said that Mum watches over me. I feel she does, too. I talk to Mum and ask her things - particularly if I find something in the house and don't know what it's for. The answer will pop into my head in a minute or two, and I think Mum puts it there.

But I digress… this post is about Dad.

During my reading I had three friends in the other room - V, C, and V's daughter-in-law P. P is rather psychic. As a teenager she knew when her best friend was having a sleepless night as it would wake her up. She's seen relatives by her bed at the time of their passing. 

When I came out from my reading, P said, "There was a man at the front door." I had an inkling the man wasn't real… otherwise the others would have spoken to him and asked what he wanted.

"What did he look like?" I asked. "What colour hair, how tall?"

"He had dark hair and was less than 6 foot. Medium height."

"Slim build?"

"Yes."

"That sounds a bit like my Dad. Hang on, I'll get a photo."  

I have a photo of Dad in his late 30s-ish in my office and I whipped it out and showed it to her. P's face contorted horribly; for a moment it seemed as if her face had turned molten. I thought she was going to faint. She looked like she'd seen a ghost, in other words, and I do believe she had. (Now I know what people look like when they say they see a ghost!)  "Oh my God," she said faintly, and then we were plying her with tea and I was apologising for giving her such a fright and thanking her for seeing my Dad. I felt so awful for giving her such a shock, and was at the same time stunned and rather elated that my father had been standing at the door.

P said Dad stood at the front door, and when I appeared with the angel card reader, he turned away, walked down the two steps and down the path out of sight. P said he wouldn't come in. 

So… I am pondering. Did he appear because there was such a strong psychic pull that day, with both P and the angel card reader in the house? Or because the angel card reader had somehow called him during my reading? And does he visit often? Does he watch, and has he watched this house since he died in 1991? He and Mum designed this place when they were still in love… 

I think Dad is one of my guardian angels, even though we weren't close. I think he's the one who looks after me when I'm flying either as a passenger or a trial flight pilot. 

Mum is another, as is my Nan.  And the card reader told me the little girl on the swing, who two reiki practitioners have both seen when they have worked on me, is my guardian angel, looking after the child inside me who so often wants to come out and play. 

So now I guess I have a few 'people' to talk to who may or may not just be hanging around, looking out for me. 

Some things don't change though - Dad would never come in the house after he left; he would leave Christmas and birthday gifts on the front step. Only once did he come in, when I was 14 and he was handing over the deeds of the house to Mum. I had to grin at the thought of him looking through the front door - and have told him since that he is welcome… inside the house.

The Takeover Merchant

Last Friday I held a morning tea, and very swish it was too with gorgeous china cup trios, Mum's best silver and some delicious cakes and biscuits I'd made. I had arranged for an angel card reader to give ten of my friends a reading, and also used it as a candle sale opportunity.

All went swimmingly. Three of my guests, V, P, and C stayed for lunch, as I hadn't seen them for ages and they live across the other side of Sydney. V's son, whom I shall call Dickhead, is married to P and he dropped them off with a promise to pick them up around 3.

I have known Dickhead all his life. He was a nice enough kid as a youngster, but I suspect suffers from some kind of mental illness - almost certainly schizophrenia and a narcissistic disorder too. Not that mental illness makes him a dickhead. It's his behaviour over the years - a web of lies and big noting. OK, so that may be driven by his mental illness but the thing is, he hasn't being diagnosed by anyone nor is he on medication. I suspect if anyone suggested to him he needed to see a doctor because he appeared to have mental issues he'd half kill them. Yes, he has a violent streak. Nearly murdered his Mum once a few years back.

But I digress. As usual.

So there we were, V, P, C and me, tucking into cake and tea at three (gosh, that rhymes!). Conversation was flowing nicely, everyone got to comment and talk, and there were plenty of giggles.

Then Dickhead turned up to collect the girls. Immediately, he sat down and took over the conversation. He always does. He and P have a son 7 months old so the conversation was dominated by Dickhead talking about his son and the swimming classes they are taking him to. The child is a genius apparently, much more advanced than any other 7 month old baby on earth. P got a word in, whenever Dickhead asked her to agree or comment, but the rest of us didn't. We just ate more cake. Then Dickhead started talking about his new job, driving a miniature train. You'd think he was the MD of a global multinational the way he spoke about it; chest puffed out with self-importance. We ate more cake.

Dickhead's Mum V knows what he is like; several people including C have mentioned to her that when he enters a room he takes over.

And that was one of the reasons* Mum didn't like having him over to visit. I felt the same on Friday. I could almost feel Mum's anger bristling behind me and I was getting cross with him too. How bloody rude, not letting anyone else change the subject, but dominating the room. I don't really want him coming over any more either. In his younger days, when he was in his late teens, he came with his parents one Christmas Day and took over the conversation, telling everyone about the new job he had as a baggage handler with Virgin Blue - all the little details about behind the scenes in the terminal, about how to load baggage carts on the aircraft, anecdotes about other handlers and strange items he and they had to get on and off aircraft. It was only weeks later that we, including his parents, found out the entire job was a lie. It didn't exist. The whole conversation with its attention to detail was a sham, designed to let him take centre stage. "He's a Walter Mitty," Mum grumbled at the time, but Walter Mitty kept his fantasies to himself living his secret imaginary life, he didn't lead others on to believe it.

By three on Friday I couldn't wait for them to go. I'd loved having my girlfriends over, but was fed up with Dickhead. I felt just like Mum must have. Finally the cake was finished. There was no excuse to stay.

Dickhead called the shots and said they had to be off to pick up said genius baby son from childcare. I felt a rush of relief. It was almost as if the atmosphere in the room had turned a palpable opaque shade while he was babbling on.  I waved them off and set about the task of carefully hand washing eleven delicate bone china cups, saucers and plates.

So now I don't want the Takeover Merchant in this house again either. While the angel card reader told me that Mum wants me to make this house my own and bring my own love and possessions into it - that's another story too! - I think I'll be true to Mum's wishes re the Takeover Merchant.

Who else out there knows a Takeover Merchant? How do you cope when they take over the conversation, no matter what topic is introduced? Or when they change the conversation to only the topics they want to speak about?

* The main reason is that Dickhead had fathered a little daughter a couple of years before he got married, and wants nothing to do with her. Won't see her, pays as little child support as he can get away with. Poor kid. Mum brought up a daughter whose Dad wouldn't see her and apparently wanted no real part in her upbringing, and Mum despises that kind of behaviour. Oh, and I did mention Dickhead almost murdered his own Mum in one of his rages...

Wondering if the end is nigh

I'm a little worried. Not about the end of the world, in case you're wondering about the title of this post. But I'm worried about the state of my friendship with a certain friend I'll call Posh.

Posh and I have been close friends since we were in our late teens. Our friendship has lasted through different cities and different continents. We are able to not see each other for months and when we do, it's like we haven't been apart; laughter all the way. But suddenly, she isn't returning my calls.

I know she's been busy - she and her husband sold their house last month so they'll be scrabbling around trying to find a new place to live with their teenaged kids.

For the last couple of years Posh and I have celebrated Melbourne Cup day together, with a bunch of her friends. This year though, not a word from Posh and now she's in pics on Facebook at someone else's Cup party with a bunch of new friends. Posh is a people collector, I may add here.

So what's gone wrong?

I think it's this: I'm now a Candle Lady. Posh wanted me to be a Thermomix consultant with her, and earlier this year I agreed to do that. However, with the stress The Scarlet Pimpernel put me under, I put any new business ideas on hold. I was sick at the thought of having to go out and do demos at other peoples' houses with a bit of gorgeous kit that costs almost $2K; you wouldn't expect to sell one at every demo at that price. I'm not a natural sales person and I knew if I didn't get a sale I'd feel down and inadequate.

So when I decided that candles were for me, as it's impossible to hold a demo without someone buying something, I rang Posh to tell her my intentions and apologise for not going into Thermomix with her. The phone went to voicemail - it does quite often with Posh as she's out and about or leaves the phone in another room.

That was six weeks ago. I've left four messages since then, and not one of them has been returned. I've messaged on Facebook. No reply. I've commented favourably on some of her recent Facebook pics. No Likes, no comment in return.

I believe I'm being shunned, rather than just ignored because Posh is busy. If that's the case, and it's as a result of my business decision, I think Posh is being a bit shallow.

Or maybe she's just grown out of our old friendship. After all, the friends she has made in the last ten years are wealthy with children who go to the same private school as Posh's. They live in a nice part of Sydney's north shore. In big houses which are typically mortgaged to the hilt. They spend like there's no tomorrow, have expensive holidays and they are all foodies to a woman.  I am not wealthy and I don't have kids; I live in a townhouse in Sydney's west; my holidays are usually planned to a budget but are enormous fun; while I love my food I'm not a princess about it.

For now, I guess I have to accept the end may be on its way for our friendship. It would have taken Posh only a minute to pick up the phone, or send me a text.

To paraphrase a famous quote from one of my favourite movies, Casablanca, "This could be the end of a beautiful friendship."

I guess I'll know one way or the other - it's almost Christmas card season.

Old flames and their car dealer doppelgängers

I met my old lover 

On the street last night 

She seemed so glad to see me 

I just smiled 

And we talked about some old times 

And we drank ourselves some beers 

Still crazy afler all these years 

Oh, still crazy after all these years 

- Paul Simon.

Well, I didn't exactly meet my old lover. But I googled him. I googled all of them (didn't take long... how embarrassing is that!?).

I found something rather strange. There are people with the same names as two of my old flames operating second hand car dealerships in New Zealand. 

I know the Kiwi car dealers aren't my old flames, as one old flame sputtered out well and truly in the late 1990s - poor guy died with a brain tumour. The other is an engineer and living in Hong Kong.

The sputtered out old flame was, in fact, a car salesman himself and had been all his life - which made me wonder whether names affect your job destiny. He had a slightly uncommon name. It wasn't Ford Prefect either.

But what are the odds of two people having car dealerships and the same names as my old boyfriends? Perhaps I exist in a strange kind of space-time continuum.

Here's your birthday present. I already unwrapped it for you.

A close friend of ours is having a birthday next week, so given that he's an aviation nut, we bought three DVDs about aircraft for him. Great bargain - three for $25.95.

G was with me when we bought them, so he knew they were destined to be a gift.

Which doesn't explain why, when we got home, he calmly tore the wrapping off one and started to watch it.

"What are you doing?" I yelped.

"Oh, Chris'll never know," he replied airily.

"He mightn't be the sharpest tool in the shed but he'll see one of them has been opened."

"So I can open all of them and they'll look the same."

Dear Herbert!! What to do?  I don't have access to one of those clever machines that shrinkwraps things.

So after G had duly watched all three - realising along the way he already had one of them as a video tape from decades past - I experimented with ways to seal the boxes so they looked like new. I tried sticky tape over the opening. Yuk. I cut clear ConTact paper into a careful circle and stuck it over the opening. Still didn't look great.

I told Mum what G had done, as Chris is a friend of her's too, and she was horrified. "What did he do that for? Is he alright in the head?"

We both agreed that when Chris opened his present, his first reaction would be that we had given him three DVDs we had finished with and no longer wanted. In short, an insult.

It was with a sigh I went back to the newsagent today, without G, and bought three new copies of the DVDs. I won't tell G. I'll just make sure he doesn't do it again; next time I'll hide any DVDs we buy for others the instant we get home.

I'm giving the others to Mum to watch, as she was married to a pilot and finds aviation stories interesting. I'll just tell her to hide them when G and I drop in.

What's your view? Is giving someone a 'used' present (unless it's vintage, antique etc) an insult?

Blackballed - but who knew?

My... er... friend Whingy is always a great source of material for this blog. I think I'll turn her into a fictional anti-heroine and write a novel about her.

Keen readers (if there are any) will know that La Whinge takes offence at the slightest thing. At something you may have said. At something you didn't say when you were supposed to. At you not providing enough sympathy for her current woes. She reserves her most scathing fury for people she considers to be rude.

Which doesn't stop Whingy being rude herself.  I'm so used to it now I have to hold back giggles in her presence when she blows her top. Receiving rudeness by email means I can both swear at her and laugh out loud and she won't know.

Take this story. My husband G has been away on a business trip. I had invited the Whingies to dinner on Saturday night, thinking he'd be back by then. They accepted (Miracle!  We live 40 minutes' drive from their place and that's usually too far for them to bother to travel just to see us, and they have a standing commitment most Saturday nights with a ballroom dancing class). However, his itinerary changed and he was coming back on the Sunday. I emailed Whingy and told her it would be just me and the animals for Saturday night dinner but we'd all still love to have them over and catch up.

The reply came back with the message that they would make it another time as they could do more household and gardening chores with the spare time on Saturday afternoon and evening.

Well! Rude or what!? I had to laugh. It was such a typical response.  Obviously I wasn't enough of a drawcard. After swearing a bit too and calling her a rude cow, I typed a little reply saying simply that I understood perfectly. My tongue was in my cheek quite snugly; I understood perfectly that she was a rude bitch and that my company alone clearly wasn't competition for household chores.

A couple of days ago I was chatting to D, a mutual friend who has known the Whingies a bit longer than I have, and told him about the dinner invitation and her change of mind.

"You mean she was going to come when G was there, but said no when she found out he was away? That's strange," said D. "She doesn't like G. I thought she'd be more inclined to come if he wasn't there."

I was stunned. "What do you mean she doesn't like him?"

"Well, remember last time you were all here at my place?" (That was many months ago as D lives even further from the Whingies than we do, and it's all too hard for the Whingies to drive over and see him.) "She wasn't talking to him. She'd blackballed him. He must have said something wrong to her at some time."

I hadn't noticed and said so.

"Ah, but you don't notice these things, do you?" said D a little archly. He's right. I'm no great student of human nature and behaviour. This means I make many gaffes and accidentally rub people up the wrong way.

We've seen the Whingies a few times since then though and I'm sure Whingy has spoken to G over dinner. At least I think I'm sure. For all I know he's still blackballed.

Last night I told G he'd been blackballed and he roared with laughter, almost spilling his beer. "I had no idea!"

"Nor did I!" I giggled.

I suspect the Whingies have the shits with us anyway, as we've had some lovely social occasions out our way earlier this year and haven't included them. Given that they don't want to bother driving out to our place too often, I'm sure they wouldn't want to drag themselves an extra hour to go to the things we've gone to.

One of those was a Tango night, which included dinner and rudimentary Tango lessons. G and I were actually guests at another friend's table, so I had a good excuse not to invite the Whingies to come with us.

I knew they would sneer at the Tango night as being for beginners and being amateurish, not to mention making fun of G's and my attempts to have a dance ourselves, whereas they, of course, are Experts and have been learning the Tango for about 18 months. I haven't seen them dance the Tango, but my experience of watching them do other dances is that their faces are masks of concentration, not a smile to be seen, and La Whinge constantly nags Mr Whinge about forgetting the steps. Surely dancing is supposed to be fun, and joyful?

Anyhow I told La Whinge about the Tango night after the event and explained that we had been someone else's guests, and she asked about the dancing itself.

I gave her a good description of the night, and her nose went up.

"Oh, that's Argentinian Tango," she said snobbily, dismissing the passion and fire of the original Tango and its earthy origins around the docksides and ladies of the night with a wave of her hand. "They do that weird thing where they wave their legs about. WE do Ballroom Tango."

Give me Argentinian Tango any day in that case. I'm even considering taking lessons myself and G is rather keen too. We'll probably be blackballed by the Whingies again but I suspect I won't notice.

With friends like these who needs enemas? #2

My friend Whingy is at it again. Easily offended, she flies off the handle if she perceives she is not in the centre and control of things. It's one of the reasons I don't see as much of her as I used to, as she has got worse with age. Here's the latest on someone in danger of being renamed Mad Cow:

We are heading to Europe next month. Whingy has a friend (called, er, Mopsy for no reason at all) who has recently stayed at a friend's apartment in Paris. (Let's call that friend Artgirl.) Whingy offered to ask Mopsy if Artgirl would be willing to rent us her apartment for a few days. Mopsy agreed and Whingy agreed Mopsy, Artgirl and I could sort it all out between us. In a nutshell, we're staying at Artgirl's. All good.

Mopsy, meanwhile, apparently had the spare keys to Artgirl's apartment, so Artgirl thought.

I then contacted Mopsy suggesting she, Whingy and I get together for a drink and a natter and she can give me the keys. Mopsy thought this was great - only she'd dropped the keys back in the apartment letterbox when she left a fortnight ago. Artgirl and I are sorting that out.

So I was left with a social dilemma. I had asked one of Whingy's friends out for a drink without doing it through Whingy. The keys were the reason. Take the keys out of the equation and what do I do? It would sound rude to say to Mopsy, "Well, since you don't have the keys we'd better not meet up." Besides which I like her and we have know each other for 20 years through The Whinge.

I suggested to Mopsy we three meet up anyway. I spoke about it to Whingy.

She said she'd rather organise something herself later on (presumably when we're overseas!). I said fine. Instead I booked a table for Whingy and I and our husbands at the local club for tonight at her request.

Meanwhile Mopsy got back to me and said she'd love to meet with me and Whingy at the local club tonight, and she'd contact Whingy to organise it.

Now Whingy is in a huff. She's cross with me for organising something with one of 'her' friends - I keep thinking of a child in a playground complaining that another girl is stealing her friends! She claims I was going to organise it without inviting her.

She sent me a grumpy email this morning: "I'm not happy about the outcome of tonight. It seems that you emailed Mopsy and gave her the impression we weren't coming! 
I offered you help in finding the flat in Paris through Mopsy, I don't then expect you to start emailing invites to her whenever I suggest to meet up.
It's not as if you ever invite us to meet with your friends."

Faaark. I have invited her to meet with my friends and it's usually been less than successful as with a group of people The Whinge doesn't get to be the centre of attention. She doesn't like most of my friends. Aside from which she grumbles if she has to come to our place as we live 40 minutes from her's and that's too far and she gets too tired...

So. I emailed back stating it was never my intention to exclude her, that emails crossed paths before some of us had spoken to each other, and that I'd be quite happy to not go tonight and she and Mopsy could go, if that made her happy. (Makes me happy, I'm quite contented to stay home and practice the ukelele.) I haven't heard back from her yet. 

Is she reasonable in her grumpiness about this? Is she being precious about two of her friends contacting each other? Is she overreacting? Is she a mad cow? 

Answers on a postcard please or leave a comment below.

It's a strange time when the child starts looking after the parent - a role reversal I'm increasingly taking on.

My Mum turns 87 next week. She lives on her own, is fiercely independent, mentally lightning-fast, but physically running out of steam. It's the last thing that scares the hell out of me.

Mum has always been active and the last three or so years she's slowed down a lot. She doesn't get out much, doesn't have the energy. I do the shopping for her these days, although she's about to renew her driver's licence as she wants to be able to drive to the shops herself when she has the energy.

She's had a strange virus this year which has affected her middle ear and given her some giddy spells, but that's just about over.

Or we thought it was.

Last weekend G and I went to Adelaide, and Mum minded our two cats and one dog. She adores having them to stay, it's good company for her and they love her to bits. She doesn't want a full time cat herself any more but enjoys looking after ours from time to time.

Cutting a long story short, Mum bent down to pick up Charley, our boy cat, who weighs the best part of nine kilos. She lifted him up, then overbalanced. Went down on her knees and elbow face first onto her patio. She's bloody lucky she didn't break anything.  (Charley, horrified, scarpered into the house and didn't reappear until I arrived later.)

I was in a plane coming back to Sydney. It probably took Mum the best part of that plane journey's time to pull herself back into the house and finally drag herself into a chair. She's fallen before but usually takes a deep breath and hauls herself up on whatever furniture is to hand. She told me it took her an hour and half this time, and oh shite, that scares me.

I feel so guilty every time G suggests we go away somewhere these days. Not just saddling Mum with the animals, as she does love them and they behave for her and give her no trouble. It's the worry that if she falls I'm not in the same city. I can't just drop everything and rush to her place, which is half an hour from mine.

I got to hers yesterday to find her sitting in a kitchen chair with a bruise under one eye, not knowing she'd taken a tumble, and got the whole story out of her. I wanted to stay the night but she said she'd be fine and sent me home to check my house was OK. We live in a far less salubrious part of town and Mum worries that our place will get burgled when we go away. With misgivings I went, and found the house was fine, just bloody cold. Mum and I chatted on the phone when I got home and she sounded much more like herself; her voice had lost that quavery timbre it had earlier in the day when I was at her house.

Anyway she phoned me this morning at breakfast time, as I'd asked her to, and said she found when she undressed the night before that she'd scraped a few inches of skin off her elbow when she fell. It bled like mad when she undressed as her blouse must have been clinging to it when it stopped bleeding initially. She hadn't felt it at the time and didn't feel it later, it wasn't even stiff. It's not even painful today, it just apparently looks awful.

I'm taking her to the doctor tomorrow anyway for a regular checkup; I did suggest I'd drop around this morning and we'd try and get a slot at the doc's but she says it's not that bad and she's not too stiff.

I feel a bad daughter for not staying over, or not simply turning up this morning and dragging her to the doc's. She's stubborn, as I am. She's also honest. If she felt bad enough, she'd ask me to take her or she'd ring up the doc and ask for a house call, both of which she's done in the past.

Now I'm worried because G has booked us a holiday in the UK for almost all of July. He has to go for work and he wants me to join him and we'll wander around for three weeks. It's a present for my 50th. I feel guilty as hell leaving Mum, even though when I'm away - or at home come to that - I phone her every day to check she's OK.

I suggested to her this morning that she talk to the doc about having a carer look in every day while I'm away, or one of the neighbours. It's not something I'd like if I were in Mum's shoes, a stranger checking up on me, and God only knows she didn't like the idea either! But I need to have some sort of plan in place so I'll know she has someone nearby to help her if she gets sick or has another fall. Fat lot of good I'll be 24 hours away.

While I'm excited at the opportunity to get back to the UK again I'm also dreading leaving Mum for so long. I hope I can persuade her to let the doc organise someone for her, just to check she's OK while we're gone. I don't normally have holidays any more; part of it is my workload and the fact my clients don't leave me be, part of it is lack of funds, and most of it is worrying whether Mum will be OK.

Any time she doesn't answer the phone when I call I worry she's lying on the floor with something broken, or dead in her bed. Thankfully she's usually just in the loo. But I still worry. I always will.

The blessings of good neighbours

Friends of mine - The Whingies, whom I've mentioned before, have neighbour issues. All their neighbours, according to them, are bastards. They are surrounded by unthinking people who let their children have loud fun in their own swimming pool, or who are mean enough to have an afternoon BBQ and make noise.

What they don't consider is what their neighbours think of them, and I suspect the neighbours can't stand them and call them as many names behind their back as the Whingies do them. After all if you have five neighbouring properties on your boundary and the people therein are all bastards, that seems a little over the odds. Could it be that the common denominator, the people in the house in the middle, is the problem?

We are blessed, on the other hand, with lovely neighbours. So is my Mum - so much so in her case that her new neighbours invited her (and us) to a party two weeks ago that was really an insight into How The Other Half Lives. Money was no object and the Moet et Chandon flowed like water. It was great fun and I think the new neighbours had invited all the surrounding property owners along not just because they wanted to get to know them, but because they knew they were having a noisy bash, and best to include people rather than have them complain about the noise. It's a good strategy. It worked. We chatted to some other neighbours there and they were having as good a time as we were. Not that we could hear the music after we got back to Mum's anyway; we just crashed into bed.

Mum is a lovely person who has always made friends with her neighbours, even the nutter who used to live next door and drive his car over our lawn on odd occasions, or light bonfires full of rubbish outside our door when he knew I (as a little girl) was having a birthday party the same day.  He was a bit mad, and everyone was at loggerheads with him except Mum, who was and is firm but nice.

Where we live now is a multicultural area, and out of the eight town houses in our complex, six of them are owned or tenanted by Indian families.  We are on chatting terms with most of them - those around the back of the complex like us who we see just about every day going to and from work. We are good friends with one couple in particular and have dined at each other's houses or drop in for cups of tea. We have been sounding boards when my neighbour R wanted to rant about her husband's family who had behaved in a very rude and ungrateful manner. We help them with odd bits of DIY and they help us. R's husband K works for a major brewing company and when he decides he can't drink all his monthly freebie allowance of beer he'll drop some around to us. They have two adorable little boys, the elder of which is fascinated by our cats and likes to visit and talk to them.

Right next door to us new people moved in last year, a young Indian couple expecting their first baby, S & Mrs S (her name starts with S too). The baby was premature and it was touch and go for a while there. We got updates on the little boy's progress and were delighted to see him come home in January. They had planned a special celebration for when he turned three months old. They are Sikhs and there's a special three day ceremony where the main Sikh text is read from start to finish by Sikh priests; it takes all the three days, 24 hours of them. On the final day you have a feast when the reading is finished.

S told us about the ceremony on Friday and apologised in advance for all the cars that would be around over the weekend as people were coming for the ceremony. He then, to our surprise, invited us to the feast on Sunday. I had a suspicion that it may have been a case of "include people rather than have them complain about the noise"!  On Sunday there were drums and lots of chanting.  Anyway we said we'd be delighted to come, and R & K told us more about what to expect, and what to wear. Luckily I had some sari material I'd made into a dress and had a scarf in similar colours I could wear on my head. My husband wore a woolly scarf tied around his head as he doesn't own a bandanna, and looked vaguely piratical... or a pirate overfed and gone to seed!

All our neighbours were at the feast too, and they all have children under five. S & S's extended family were there, as well as many friends. I think there were about 40 people sitting on the floor, on the chairs, wherever, and we were the only two anglo-saxons there. I felt rather honoured that we had been invited. The ceremony of the food, the friendship, the laughter... it was a lovely day with everyone in their finery and everyone getting on with each other. We also had a good opportunity to chat more with some of our other neighbours and are now planning a night at the rugby together, six of us.

We are very blessed to have nice neighbours, but of course the behaviour of neighbours reflects on how you behave to them. If I tell Whingy about the ceremony she'll roll her eyes and ask how we coped with the chanting and drums, which would have driven her mad, or the small children running about (ditto mad). To be honest, we were having such a good time getting to know our neighbours better we didn't even notice.

With friends like this who needs enemas?

This morning I was repairing my wind chimes, reattaching the chimes where the cheap cotton thread had worn away; my chimes were no longer chiming! I have two of them - there used to be three but number three had a fatal demise and was beyond repair. I'm contemplating a replacement, one of those huge big tuned wooden ones.

Thinking about big loud wooden chimes got me thinking about one of my friends, who I shall for blog purposes name Whingy. Whingy hates wind chimes. My mother has a nice one on her balcony, and when Whingy and her husband, Mr Whingy (known collectively as The Whingies) visited a couple of years ago the beautiful tinkling noise the chimes were making as the pleasant north east wind swirled and twirled them drove Whingy mad.

"I HATE wind chimes!" she grumbled. "I'm going to take down those chimes and throw them in the bin!"

Whingy, it is worth adding here, seems to suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, she has many of the symptoms. Whereever she goes she expects people to bow to her wishes, a self-appointed Queen of Everything She Surveys.

Mum, whose mildness conceals an iron fist in a velvet glove, said politely, "I like my wind chimes." There was the steady gaze that said, "This is MY house and you are NOT touching my wind chimes."

Whingy continued to grumble about the wind chimes all evening and I was glad when the wind dropped. Mr Whingy said nothing. Sometimes he has sense. Other times he backs her up.

Whingy, you see, has delicate hearing, attuned only to notes that are in tune. She has studied classical piano at a conservatorium. She KNOWS. She loves Music. The slightest bum note can send her into orbit, and our wind chimes sound just great to me, but I'm a bit tone deaf.

This delicate hearing extends beyond music. When the Whingies moved into their house nearly twenty years ago their next door neighbour had an aviary. The neighbour was an older man with his adult son living with him, along with about twenty birds, two of which were big white cockatoos.

I love cockies. I love their character, their screeches, the way their sulphur-coloured crests rise cheekily. These two cockies were of the cheerful, chatty, screechy variety, happy to yell at passing birds or wolf-whistle when the old man came out of the back door.

Whingy, naturally, hated them. She hated them so much, and wrote so many nasty letters to her neighbour, that he ended up getting rid of the cockies and finding them new owners.

Whingy was jubilant. I was disgusted. The poor bloody neighbours had had the birds for years before Madam moved next door.

That was the first of their neighbour issues. The old man moved into a home and the aviary was gone in its entirety, to be replaced by a family with small and noisy children. Then the neighbours next door to that changed and there was a kid who used to bounce a basketball (deliberately loudly I'm sure) on concrete outside the Whingies' living room. Five houses back onto one side of the Whingies' property, and they have had issues with nearly all the neighbours over the years, predominantly about noise. Kids jumping, shrieking, into swimming pools on a summer's day has annoyed them to the point where The Whingies would shout swear words at the top of their lungs, knowing the parents would hear and bring the kids inside away from the rude neighbours. Most of their neighbours have received a solicitor's letter about some misdemeanour or other.

The latest escapade is a shocker.

Last week one of her neighbours - new ones who are only now discovering what it's like to live next door to her - threw an afternoon BBQ for some mates. They have a small backyard and the grown up men starting playing ball games. A couple of tennis balls flew into Whingy's garden. Then - and she probably guessed it was coming - a soccer ball thumped over the fence. By now she was foaming at the mouth because the neighbours were making NOISE.

She stabbed the soccer ball with a knitting needle and gleefully watched it deflate.

A short time later the gate intercom rang and two burly blokes were waiting at the gate, presumably to get the ball back. She ignored the buzzer and, lo! two minutes later they'd climbed over the fence on the other side of her property and were wandering up the drive in search of the ball. She read them the riot act and told them they were trespassing; they said she should have at least acknowledged their buzzer if she was home or handed the ball back herself.

Later that night the new neighbour rang the intercom. A heated conversation between the Whingies and the new neighbour ensued. Turns out the soccer ball was brand new and cost $90. Whingy screamed on about trespassing and got mad at Mr Whingy because he was being wimpy and not standing up for her enough. "Can't we talk nicely about this?" pleaded the new neighbour. No, apparently not.

Now they have their pet solicitor - a good friend - writing a nasty letter to the new neighbours about trespass. Jeez!

A couple of years ago the house on the other side of theirs was up for sale and the Whingies urged us to try and buy it, principally so it wouldn't go to 'nasty' neighbours. We said, with sad faces, that there was no way we could afford it. What we were really thinking, apart from being financially downmarket, was the hell we'd go through with our choice of music trickling through open windows, our dog barking at birds or people knocking on the door, throwing a party and having to invite them or they'd be pissed off... and of course our selection of wind chimes.

I wonder if those big wooden ones will be cheaper in the Boxing Day sales? Heh heh heh.

'Tis the season and all that

Did the last, the very last, of the Christmas shopping today as well as stocking up on so-fresh goodies at the local farmers' market this morning. Not that we'll get much chance to sample them this weekend. We've been deluged with invitations to parties.

Firstly we're off to a BBQ tonight with friends I've known for about 25 years. Sadly our spaniel (below) isn't invited. She used to be when she was a puppy but then she made the awful mistake puppies make when they're a bit nervous with shrieking kids running around them and did a small puddle on their carpet. I was mortified but heck, the two kids in the house had done a lot more damage than that over the years. Anyway, poor pooch, she's on their blacklist even five years later. Even though the party is out in their backyard and there'll be other dogs there. Makes me feel a bit unwelcome as all our other friends like our dog and she certainly doesn't pee indoors any more. I guess we're a bit different as we treat our animals as family members rather than pets whose place is firmly outdoors whatever the climate and weather, which is how these particular friends view their two dogs. Our spoiled lassie sleeps on her own bed in our bedroom. Our cats sleep wherever they want - usually on our bed :-).

And then there's the shoe thing. You have to take your shoes off at their door. Makes it bloody cold in winter when you visit them, and in summer I'm confronted with bare feet en masse, and I'm not a foot person. I guess I haven't seen too much of these old friends in the last few years for these two reasons; I feel a bit uncomfortable in their house. I could understand the shoe rule if they had a posh marble floor or valuable carpets, but it's a suburban house much like ours and has polished floorboards and rugs stained with fruit juice and other stuff the kids spill.

Tomorrow we have a lunch with friends of t'other half, who have become my friends too. Dog welcome. Another BBQ. Far more relaxed than tonight's I'm thinking! These two are a bit bohemian,which suits me fine.

And tomorrow night it's another friend's birthday party. Surprise - it's a BBQ. Dog welcome as their dog enjoys the company.

By then I'll be BBQd out! We grabbed low alcohol beer and wine this morning to take along to these parties to ensure we don't end up with the hangovers from Hell come Monday. I'm on holidays from Monday so am planning plenty of cycling for next week - hurrah! The weather is forecast to be Just Perfect for most of the week.

And finally... a cheerful Christmas wish to everyone from my Birman boy cat... aka Santa Claws in this case. Corny I know - we used this pic for our own Christmas cards to family and friends this year as he has such a cheeky expression.

Mustn't speak ill...

I went to a funeral today. They're never happy events, but the departed in question was 92, so that's a good long innings, and she died of heart failure as a result of a quick onset of pneumonia. Sudden, and for all that harder for her family as they weren't prepared for her to go so quickly. Mind you if your mum was 92 you'd be on alert anyway I think.

The woman in question was my close friend's mother-in-law Alice, and you know all those mother-in-law jokes? She was the embodiment of many of them. She loathed my friend Valerie, who is one of the nicest, most genuine people I know. Alice said some awful things to Val when she and Chris first married, awful enough that Val hasn't spoken to her for 20 years and Chris for the most part hasn't either. It could and should have been a happy family from the time Val and Chris' first son was born, but by the time my godson came along they weren't on speaking terms with Chris' mother. Thankfully they made peace earlier this year, with Chris driving down the coast to visit his mum several times, and Alice coming to my godson's 21st birthday two months ago. But the peace was a little tenuous; Chris never trusted his mum not to be bitchy about Valerie.

But today I discovered something Val hadn't let on - Alice had trouble with ALL her daughters-in-law, current and ex. All three were there today out of respect to the family, but it seems that Alice was one of those mothers of sons who loathe the women they marry. No woman would be good enough for her son; you see this quite a lot and I wonder why some mothers go to the extent of trying to cause unhappiness for the child they obviously love dearly. These three daughters-in-law are also nice people, and have brought up their children to love their grandmother and value family no matter how they personally feel about a woman who has been spiteful to them to the very edge of slander.

What is it with some mothers and their sons? I know women too who think their son-in-law isn't 'good enough' for their daughter, but they are usually outnumberd by mothers of men who resent their daughter-in-law. Life's too short for not trying to get on with the people your children choose. Even if you live to 92.