Rehab

I found out last night my sister is going into rehab tomorrow for a month. Alcohol issues amongst other things...

I was chatting to her whilst getting stuck into a large glass of wine - alone.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

Living arrangements

My living arrangements are quite complicated. Well perhaps not that complicated...they are as follows:
I own a flat which I don't live in. It is rented out.
I live in my mum's flat which I don't own but rent off her. She doesn't live in it. She lives in her own house in England.
Right, now that's sorted.
The thing with her owning my current residence is that she visits from time to time which is lovely. However, she also brings her friends. Rarely, I might add, but she does.

She arrived about half an hour ago with two of her friends and as the place is two bedrooms, this means a full house. They tend to enjoy rosé sippage and nibbles late into the night which keeps me up when I need to be asleep for work.
Normally I stay over the road at a friends house but he too has friends visiting at the moment which renders me homeless. Either that or I have to share a bed with my mum and become increasing irritable with their keraaazy late night drinking antics. (I am trying to remember who is the parent here).

So for the next week, I will be couch-surfing, which is fun.

This provides me with a couple of advantages.

1. I get to catch up with friends who I do not normally dedicate enough time to.

b. I get to spend limited time with the mum and her friends. A little harsh perhaps but mum on her own is fine, a week with her friends is not. I have the excuse to leave early as after all, I cannot treat my other friends' couches like hotels.

The other great thing about having a two bedroom place is that my friends can come and stay and the size of the place makes it very sociable. That said, my mum has developed this annoying habit of ironing and making up her bed when she leaves.
This means that when she returns, I have to iron her bastard-very-hard-to-iron enormous sheets and duvet cover. Utter Crap.

Badger is....

Is it normal that I want to write texts in Facebook speak, even to the mum?

Badger is glad that mum had a safe trip home and she was pleased to see her.

No. No. No.

Flat pack chat

And so my Saturday just gone was pretty similar to the one that went before, although slightly less evil I might admit.

I trekked down the motorway (AGAIN) with the mother of all hangovers (AGAIN) and dragged my feet into the hell that is that bastard Ikea (AGAIN) on a Saturday.
Due to my vegetative remedial state the Saturday before, I had bought the wrong bed slats. Arse.

I did manage to find some junk food to follow the fucker of a mission however, which mildly eased my situation. Then promptly and predictably made me feel sick. Standard.

The weekend camping was very good indeed although there was a mistral blowing at night which increased in severity last night. The smug mother and smug sister were all wrapped up in the gently rocking caravan with a fan on to circulate the stifling air temperature.

Myself and my friend on the other hand, were battling it out in the awning whilst lines snapped, tent pegs flew out, poles buckled and the brown dust stuck to our sweaty foreheads.
A pretty terrible nights sleep by all accounts.

I had not expected such discomfort and extreme elements of a July weekend in the south of France. I shall be retiring early this evening. In a bed. In a flat. With a fan.

Weak end

What a shocker. Friday night was reasonably drunken. Three crying girls at various points of the evening, one ranting Irish girl, a sobbing Welsh one and a lurking Mum to be entertained to boot.
The night ended well with the current fave chap joining me in the pub. We chatted lots, laughed a bit, I took the piss out of him a great deal and then we walked home together around 4.30am.

Dearest Mother woke me at 8am the following morning, talking at the top of her voice into her mobile phone....as only mothers can. She was on the phone to my sister, who happened to be in northern France, and it was like she was talking loud enough so that my sister might hear.
Being virtually talentless at sleeping I knew that was it. I was up. I was fuming.

I could barely look at her let alone talk to her and stormed out the flat with my head pounding and my mum knowing better than to ask questions.

I had the day from hell ahead.

After driving 2 hours down the coast and battling with a Saturday Ikea with a hangover, I can honestly say the will to live was weak. Child killing was high on my mental checklist.
Another half an hours drive and I found mum calmly sipping a cold lemonade at the campsite. Although my foul mood had subsided, I can honestly say that I would rather have poked myself repeatedly in the eye than spend the next two hours setting up mum's caravan awning in 30 degree heat.

Much much later, normal balance was restored following my weekend standard fare of salad, chips and a lot of wine.

Told off...

So my mum is here for a month. It is day 2. I love her muchly and on Saturday, she is going down the coast for 3 weeks. I shall be joining her at weekends but it means the week will be mum-free.

We are very similar you see. Too similar in fact.

I was having a few drinks last night with the green-eyed-cheeky-chappy-ski-instructor-with-dimples. I texted mum at 8pm to say dinner would be late and then phoned at 9 to say I wouldn't be long.

She was cross. She said 'You could have let me know' in an upset mum voice. But 'I did', I replied in whiny child tones.

So that was me, age 30, reprimanded for being late for dinner. Not good.

I blame her mostly for saying on my 30th birthday that I should do whatever I want in life. She obviously didn't mean it.
And although she is not yet whinging about her lack of grandchildren (I need a boyfriend first), she has to understand that in order for this to ever happen, I must be late for dinner due to sitting drinking with green-eyed-cheeky-chappy-ski-instructors-with-dimples. And the like.

Chavtastic

The aforementioned cousin's husband (does that make him a cousin-in-law? I am thinking probably not) is a top drawer chav. Lovable, funny but nevertheless a chav.

He drives a very shiny, very red sports BMW and has lots of gadgets that fall off the back of some very careless lorries, a lot.
There is some sparkly diamond earring and gold chain wearing amongst other things but he is a legend in a shiny tracksuit. His son (second cousin?) is 17. He is of the Burberry cap, tracksuit tucked into white socks and trainers variety. He can't make eye contact with anyone but fair play to even turning up to a BBQ where the minimum age is 30 and the maximum is 76.

His Dad bought him a big exhaust for his boy racer car for his 17th as an incentive to pass his test. This is the very exhaust that set off a car alarm just from driving past it further up our street. I think some tea came out of a few neighbours' noses.

Whilst I don't have any other chav mates or relatives, these chav's are all mine AND I am related to them...which I love because it somehow makes chavness OK.

We are family

The weekend was spent in Birmingham, where I am from. Every year we have a big family BBQ and last year this coincided with Father's Day and the scattering of my Dad's ashes.

I went and had a chat with him and the tree that he now is. Lovely but bizarre all the same.
I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel anything or not. The only thing that came flooding to me was great memories which made me smile and my eyes slightly leak simultaneously.

The BBQ was a great success and we got smashed as is the norm. Drunk uncles, cousins and a sister.

My cousin's husband is always enquiring after our love lives, or lack of. Now with my sister having a chap for the first time in an age, it was me in the firing line. How come I haven't got a man yet?

It's actually a question I get asked all the time and I never know what to answer. 'Um...because I'm incapable??'

He is also the same guy who commented last year that I looked like a bit of a crisp eater....charmed. This year it was backed up with 'See you at the carvery tomorrow, I know you'll be there where there is food involved'.

Family. Always a pleasure, never a chore.