Well that was fun.
Actually, it was a rather nice week, just exhausting. My future mother in law has a golden retriever-like desire to please, and the energy to match. The woman never stops moving. Just being in a room with her wears you out. Mom and the FIL (Father In Law, obv) got on fine, and never stopped talking. Not for one minute. The conversation flowed like the Ganges, without repetition, deviation, or hesitation.*
The worst part of the weekend was the drive up, which took twice as long as it normally does thanks to holiday traffic and was a very grumpy and miserable experience for the Pirate, who was driving.
The rest of the weekend went by in a blur of sight-seeing and food. The MIL does not. stop. cooking. Ever. And you're not allowed to finish a meal. She's constantly pushing more food in your face and insisting you eat more. The woman doesn't take 'no' for an answer. We sat at the dining table for 3 meals a day. Breakfast was croissants, fruit, cereal, coffee, tea, toast, yogurt, toast, cereal, jam, eggs, and juice. Lunch was a hot meal, and came with dessert! Then there was tea, which naturally involved cakes. Then there was dinner, which came with another dessert!
We'll be living on steamed veggies and brown rice for the rest of the week.
Oh, and the in-laws STILL don't let Pirate and me sleep in the same room, which sucks. I'll give the mater credit for this much: she orchestrated it so we could have some time alone in the house together, which was really really nice. We seriously needed that. We used the time to play video games (Medieval Total War) and finish the model of Stone Henge I started at Christmas. And to mess my hair up, naturally.
But there were no explosive rows. Only a strained awkwardness when it became apparent during conversation that FIL doesn't believe in global climate change, and believes that if it is happening there's nothing we can do about it so there's no reason for him to give up his Jag and 2 Aston Martins. Tosser.
Now the mater and I are working full time at wedding planning. Finding shoes has become the crisis du jour.
*that's a Radio4 joke. See how sophisticated** I've become?
**middle class
7 comments:
Are you basing the Stonehenge model after the Stonehenge monument used in Spinal Tap?
Will you hire dwarves to dance around it?
And you my love, won't you take my hand
We'll go back in time to that mystic land
Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow
I will take you there
I will show you how
You're getting married in six months and they still won't let you sleep together? Each to their own I guess but... man, that's harsh.
Sexual politics notwithstanding, I think your FIL and my dad were separated at birth. After lunch today he insisted on using Google Earth to demonstrate the size of the Isle of Man relative to the rest of the Arctic. I told him not to come moaning to me when he had to swim to work.
you can't chide the man for not wanting to give up his fucking astons, jeez...
(hi :-)
someone near and dear to me has the very same opinion. aaaaaaaaand I'll leave it at that
*kaffkaffgardenerkaffgakgakkindaseenit happeningkaffhack*
you survived, though! and nothing caught on fire! and that flying turtle thing never showed up and knocked over the hydroelectric dam and then rose up and started spinning around and shot a bunch of fireballs out of it's head-hole that burned nasagabi prefecture to the ground!
i say well done.
a success me thinks!
Now if you insist on Radio 4 then FIL can drive a jag - normally the two go hand in hand . . .
:)
Sounds like the perfect Easter weekend - glad it all went well.
I've got to admit (after having my mum to stay for a week) that I do the continual cooking thing too when people visit, partly to make people feel welcome but also because I like to have the chance to cook for more than one other person, it gives you a chance to try out new recipes - especially cake recipes, as F doesn't eat cakes or biscuits if I made them when it was just the two of us it would have disastrous consequences for my waistline.
At the risk of sounding terribly old-fashioned I think that your (almost) in-laws sticking by the seperate beds rule is rather nice. If I had children I'd insist on it too.
Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke had separate beds!
Whatever Gaia decides to do will happen regardless of what we do now to speed it along...
it's too late.
Wait until the developing world lives like we do..then panic. I suspect that our pleas to 'live greener' will fall on deaf ears after they have watched us squander and spoil with reckless abandon since the 1700s.
Millions of years ago my house was at the bottom of a huge, shallow, inland sea surrounded by semi-tropical forests. In 4 billion years our Sun will fizzle and the entire solar system will cease to be.
Happy Easter!
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