My first visit to my boyfriend's family

The Easter holidays in 2012 were memorable in a number of ways. It was the first time that I had been invited to stay at my boyfriend’s house and the first time I had met his parents and his brother. I drove over on a horrible wet Easter Saturday morning in time for lunch. They live in a newish 2 story barn conversion with fields on three sides. I was taken on the guided tour by his mum and saw the massive master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom and the smallest balcony I've ever seen. It was about three feet from back to front. The other three bedrooms were in the other part of the upstairs of the house but you needed to go down stairs to go up a different flight of stairs to get to them. There were 3 bedrooms in a row, his younger brother's room then Stewart's room then the guest room that I was going to use. His mum managed to say with a straight face that if I ever wanted "private time with Stewart" it was probably best not to have it next door to his brother. I just smiled sweetly (blush)! In the afternoon we went off (all 5 of us) to see some Roman remains run by English Heritage. I didn't know if I should offer to pay my own entrance charge but decided I didn’t need to as I was their guest.

I had packed some smart clothes in case the family went to church on Easter Sunday. But they are not religious, just very nice and easy to get on with. They were the type of person you somehow feel that you have known for ages even when you have only known them a few hours. We had our first go in the hot-tub - outside but under cover if that makes sense. My second blush of the visit was when I realised that 4 of us were going to be sharing the tub, not just Stewart and me. I think if I had known this I would have packed my one-piece swim suit rather than my bikini. Stewart's mum gave me a knowing smile as I came down from the bedroom where I had changed. I knew I was going to like her!

We went out all day on Monday to see the local sites and to pubs for meals. At one point all the men mysteriously disappeared and Stewart's mum and I had a little chat. It seems as if I was very strongly approved of (smug emoticon) and she just mentioned in passing that she knew that my Mum and Dad had been killed in an accident but the kind way she did meant it didn't stress me at all. We had a little joke about Stewart's brother acting as a chaperone. Stewart had wanted him banned from the house except for sleeping. We had a haggis for supper which I've never had before. It was rather like meatballs in taste and texture.

Tuesday was a horrid, horrid day!! I was supposed to be going home in the morning but when I was getting dressed I noticed a web cam on the bookshelves in my bedroom. It turned out Stewart's silly younger brother thought it would be funny to record everything that happened in my room onto his laptop just two rooms away. I suppose it was a silly prank that got out of hand, although he hid the camera very carefully so only the lens was visible when the camera was pointed at the bed. I told Stewart, he told his Dad, his Dad told his wife and all hell kicked off. His brother was dragged out of bed and, verbally, beaten to death. He didn't really have a defense or an explanation. He has admitted watching all the recordings, fast-forwarding though the boring bits. I don't understand how ANY decent person would want to spy on me like he did! I thought at the time that he was being very evasive and I wondered if he has told the whole story about what and when he recorded.

What happened to his brother? Well he wasn't buried under the patio but he probably wishes he had been. Practically everything he owned was taken away for a month and he was grounded indefinitely.

Even now, 18 months later, I find it difficult to forgive and forget!

The saga of the missing lock on my bedroom door!

Nothing was ever simple when dealing with Nan and Granddad. I was paying to stay at their house but I certainly wasn’t treated like a lodger. He wanted my money and he wanted to be in control but he also wanted to be seen by his friends and colleagues as a generous and kind person. All this meant that he had a number of personalities and he switched between them depending on who was around.

I can remember arriving home a bit later from school than normal – a sporting event I was in had over-run by about 15 minutes. This would normally cause a major row because Granddad liked his life, and the life of everybody around him, to run to a strict timetable. But when I arrived one of his friends from the Bowls Club was in the house and so he switched on his interested grand-parent routine. Once his friend left I got well battered both physically and verbally as Granddad reverted to normal!

For several months after Mum and Dad were killed I was quite often in a frantically sad and stressed state. Quite little things used to upset me but my G-Parents just were not into feelings. Their way of coping with the death of their daughter was to act as if it hadn’t happened so if I even mentioned my parents I would get into trouble. It was only the support I got from the school that made my life even half-way bearable.

Having something as simple as a lock on my bedroom door turned into a massive issue that was never sorted out. They used to knock, wait about 3 seconds, literally, then march in. It was ridiculous. I was a paying guest, paying quite a lot actually, with zero privacy. Not nice at all at 17. Twice I remember sitting on the bed topless on purpose hoping that somebody would come in so that the lock would get sorted out. Nan was a great fan of M&S clothes so I used this to wind them both up. I purchased the briefest bikini in the shop and that summer I used to sunbathe in the back garden. Nan couldn’t say anything because all I would have said was “But I got it at M&S”. 

Nobody could say granddad was liberal and sometimes he could be quite creepy, I used to feel quite uneasy if he came into my bedroom for a chat at bedtime, even if Nan was with him.  I'm surprised that Nan allowed it even after I switched from wearing a nightie to wearing pyjamas! 

Escaping from them and going back to live in Mum and Dad’s old house felt like escaping from prison. As you might guess I was "bad mouthed" by Granddad whenever he was explaining why I had left their house. Nothing was ever his fault of course.

 

Christmas 2011 - "Cinderella Sally" (Part 2)

I was quite relieved to see Nan and Granddad off on their holiday on the 21^st December. They hadn’t asked what I had arranged to do while they were away and I didn’t tell them that I had managed to find somewhere to go or someone to see for each day until they got back.

If they did bother to buy me a present I didn't know where they had put it. Mine to them vanished from under the tree so I guessed that they took it with them. My aunt came round for tea on the 22^nd and from Easter onwards it was sorted out that I would live at her house during the university holidays. My cousin had moved out to live with her long-term boyfriend so there was going to be room for me. I think we were both rather shocked at how difficult Nan and Granddad had been. Me living with them was their idea but they seemed to do nothing but moan about it.

 

Christmas Day was always going to be rather difficult. It is supposed to be a happy, family day but I was feeling rather sad and abandoned. I was very firm with myself – so every time I felt sadness coming on I had a square of chocolate and then told myself to stop being so silly!  It felt rather strange opening presents on my own, particularly ones I had got for myself. But various relatives had been very kind about sending me something, although really I suspect under normal circumstances I would have counted as too old. GParents phoned at 7:45 to tell me that they would give me my present on their return from holiday. (I guessed that it hadn’t been purchased yet!).

I went off for my Christmas dinner to one of my friends from school who lived 4 doors down the road from where I used to live. They made me feel very welcome but they were one of those families who open all their presents after lunch and it was a bit awkward just sitting there while this was going on. I just smiled and joined in the conversation.

Boxing Day lunch was at the home of a mature student who was on the same course as me. There were six of us altogether. All people who didn’t, for a whole range of reasons, have family to go to over the Christmas holiday: including two overseas students (Singapore and South Africa) who didn’t have enough spare cash to go home. We had a really good time and I was pleased that I went.

I know it seems a strange thing to do but I went home via the cemetery where Mum and Dad are buried. I “told” them how grim it had been staying with Nan and Granddad. The generation gap was just too much to deal with. We never seemed to want to do the same things. Even watching the TV was a stress. Once all they wanted to watch finished off went the TV, never any "anything you would like to see dear" to be heard. If I went to my room instead I was moaned at for being "anti-social".

I am quite proud of how I coped over the holiday. I could have spent the entire two weeks just sitting around feeling miserable. Instead I kept myself busy and the time went by quite quickly.

Christmas 2011 - "Cinderella Sally" (Part 1)

I have been rather dreading writing this blog entry and have postponed writing it a couple of times because the events around Christmas 2011 still make me feel so cross and sad. I had started at university in September and as my Mum and Dad’s house, the house that I had inherited, was being rented out the great unanswered question was, “Where does Sally go for the Christmas holidays?”

For all sorts of reasons the rest of the family had decided that it had to be at Nan and Granddad’s house and that didn’t please me at all. I had been battered and abused there before and I wasn’t keen to repeat the experience. However Mum’s sister and Dad’s brother managed to persuade me that Granddad had “changed” so it was all agreed. But at the end of November the weekly letter arrived from Nan and Granddad. They are all excited because they had been invited to go away over Christmas with another couple (long-time friends) from the 21st to the 28th December. How very nice for them but not for me! Typically they seemed to have forgotten that I was supposed to be staying with them over the Christmas holiday and that I had got nowhere else to go.

A couple of days later I invited myself around to their house for tea and it soon became clear that they had convinced themselves that I could stay at the university "with all your friends" for the Christmas week. They were so excited at the thought of their holiday that I just didn't dare say that I was going to have to use the money I saved during the term to stay in a cheap B&B for 7 nights. When I was driving back to the university feeling fairly wretched I remember thinking that if Mum and Dad are looking down on me they must be wondering what on earth was going on?

Luckily some sensible friends who were on the same course as me persuaded me to tell Gran and Granddad that I couldn’t stay at the university over Christmas. As my friends pointed out it was them that suggested renting out Mum and Dad's home (mine now) or else I could have gone there. Everybody knew from the start that Easter was going to be an issue because Grand Parents did their annual coach trip holiday then - but it was never suggested that I was going to be Christmas on my own as well.

Eventually, after lots of grumbling on their behalf, Granddad agreed that I could stay in their house while they were away providing I didn’t have any visitors round. How very festive! On the plus side the two of them being away meant that I would avoid the humiliation of the previous year when my Christmas present from them was a bar of fruit and nut chocolate they had rushed out to buy on Christmas Eve.

Rather than having a wail, although I was very tempted, I decided to sort out some “away days” with school or university friends. With luck I thought I might manage to fill my diary except for Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I vaguely hoped that my Aunt, who helped me look after my money, might find a spare place at her dining room table even though she was supposed to have a houseful turning up already. Otherwise it was going to be a chicken leg and a sprig of holly for me!

I casually mentioned on Facebook that I would be on my own over the holiday season and I had 2 offers for Christmas Day and 3 for Boxing Day! So on Christmas Day I went to one of my friends from school who lived 4 doors down the road from where I used to live and on Boxing Day I went to the home of a mature student who was on the same course as me. Good old Facebook!

Much later I found out that my Aunt had had a stern word with my Grand Parents to remind them that buying me a decent present "might be nice" - not just another bar of chocolate from the corner shop like the previous year.

So as arranged I turned up at my Grandparent’s house at the end of term. Talk about a frosty reception! I knew they usually went out for a meal on a Friday but I hoped that they would either not go as it was my first night with them or that they might invite me to go with them. But no, off they went leaving me behind. I knew just how Cinderella felt!

Both of them are a bit deaf so when they think they are whispering I could still hear them. I soon realised that they didn’t want me living with them even in the holidays - all the mess and noise - and it’s not nice feeling slightly unwanted all the time. But rather than mope around the house that first evening I made a couple of phone calls and by 8:30PM I was in town having a meal with some school friends! I even got back before the curfew at 10:30 that Nan and Granddad had as a "house rule".

I wrote in my diary, “Mum and Dad I’m missing you so much today. Sometimes my life seems such total and utter s**t. But wherever you are I promise that I will keep battling along as best I can!”