Eve of the Eve

In the full throes of the cold here 🙁 D and S are on the mend but have hacking coughs. Ady is moving from snot production and into cough territory with more updates and regular health bulletins than would be posted on the gates of Buckingham Palace should the monarch be at death’s door :roll:. I am still on day one and just feel generally throaty and cross and impatient with the whole world. So that’ll be a good few days of coughing in stereo from everyone I share living space with for me to look forward to then. Great. I do love coughs… 🙄

So it was a slow, coughy start to the day before we nipped into Lancing to get a few bits. I got a couple of cheap pillowcases for the children to decorate and use as stockings (an activity for tomorrow to use up some of that over excited Christmas Eve energy on creative pursuits), a new calendar for me as they were reduced to clear, the final present I’d overlooked yesterday for someone, plenty of drugs to ease cold and flu symptoms (decongestants, cocaine-filled capsules (yes I do means that :lol:), vicks sticks for shoving up noses and two bog boxes of nice soft tissues and a pocket pack of nice soft tissues for each of us), then a final dash around the supermarket for mulled wine ingredients for tomorrow during which I forgot again to get the nuts and mango chutney I’d also forgotten yesterday.

Home for me to wrap up the final bits, Ady to make lunch and the children to decorate the Christmas cake and then play with geomags before we headed over to Chris and Julie’s. It was a lovely sunny day so we went for a brisk walk with their dog round the field near to them. I wasn’t totally up for it to be honest, but actually with the sun hanging low in the sky and the children able to run off some energy and me having to concentrate more on not slipping over on the muddy bits of path that weren’t still frozen from a heavy ground frost last night my mind was taken off my wallowing in sniffles and I quite enjoyed it. Julie and I managed a good catch up chat too. Then it was back to theirs for tea, festive nibbles, chat and play.

There was a slightly sticky moment as Ady and Chris’ mother had passed a message to ask if she could buy Christmas presents for Davies and Scarlett, to which I replied a categoric NO!. For background – when Ady was 6, Chris was 2 and their sister Deborah was 10 their parents split up. The three children all ended up in care, seperated from each other. Both parents remarried – their mother went on to have another son and their father went on to have another son and daughter with their new partners. Ady, Chris and Deborah all lived with one or other parent at various times but spent a lit of time in care and childrens’ homes having far from idyllic childhoods. When I first met Ady he’d not had contact with either parent or either sibling for a fair few years. His sister tracked him down when we’d been together for a couple of years and we went along to a surprise birthday party for their 90 year old grandmother (his father’s mother) where I met his sister and his dad for the first time. It was all very strange though with his father’s wife and their two children there but all ignoring Ady and Deborah as though they weren’t stepchildren / half siblings. Ady and his Dad had a stilted conversation which was sadly to be their last as his Dad passed away a year or two later without them ever meeting again. It was the start of a sporadic contact with Deborah again though and I met her a couple more times. Sadly she too died (of breast cancer) just before her 40th birthday back in 2001. Before she died she’d persuaded Chris to come along to our wedding reception where he and Julie turned up (again, first contact between him and Ady in about 15 years). Deborah’s death and then the birth of Scarlett, Jack and Maisie so close together and our totally coincidental and seperate decisions to Home Educate have meant that since we moved back to Sussex in 2004 we have gotten close to Chris and Julie. The fact that Julie and I get on has obviously cemented it.

Chris and Julie see Brenda – Ady and Chris’ mother and her husband Jim. Ady has not seen her for many years. He was prepared to accept some contact with her knowing they would come face to face at Deborah’s funeral but despite sitting in the row infront of us she didn’t even look him in the face. Whilst I appreciate much of Ady’s take on the whole matter and him laying most of the blame for the marriage breakup and subsequent crappy childhood in care feeling unwanted is that of a child who wouldn’t have been in possession of all the true facts I do know that as a mother there is nothing either of my children would ever do that would cause me to lose contact with them, ignore them or stop me from wanting them in my life. I also know that having been Ady’s friend for 17 years, his partner for 14 and his wife for 8 that she is missing out big time on having a son who would make any mother so very proud to call her his own. It would seem that she might be starting to feel like that herself but I am of the opinion that it is too late. I don’t think you can repair relationships like that and I also don’t think that Ady would stand to gain anything. He is a happy, sorted, loved and loving man who has all the family and friends around him he could ever need. The very suggestion of contact with his mother sets him twitching and anxious and I don’t think anything positive would come of seeing her for him. I am also utterly convinced that contact with her would not bring anything beneficial to Davies and Scarlett. They know she exists; they know she is local and they know that Jack and Maisie see their shared grandmother. They have had age and comprehension appropriate explanations as to why Ady doesn’t see her and obviously as they get older and want more details they can have them but to actually introduce another granny into their lives at this stage, who shares no history with their father or mother and cannot tell them anything about his childhood or give anything other than some tragic explanation for why she didn’t play her role is something else I can’t see any gain for Davies and Scarlett in. I can totally appreciate that she would gain a hell of a lot from seeing her son and grandchildren but my respect for her feelings and compassion for her wellbeing is not something I am in possession of really. Ady and I have talked about it again tonight and as the whole situation leaves him jittery and he would simply rather not think about it at all he is more than happy to let me be the baddy and make the zero tolerance decision to not allow her into our lives on any level.

That aside, and Chris and Julie seemed pretty respectful of my emphatic no, they were merely passing on a message and can pass ours back as diplomatically – or not – as they like, it was a nice afternoon. Once we got home I rather slumped and Ady did the kids tea and wonderful things to a joint of pork for our dinner. I’ve had a lovely long email from my friend in New Zealand with all their catch up news and might try and ring her tomorrow for our annual chat, I’ve supported my mate Dayve by downloading his Christmas EP, had some medicinal wine and as everyone else is finally asleep and therefore no longer coughing as the fire flickers it’s last I am feeling nicely glowing, at peace with the world (Ady’s mother aside!) and ready to start Christmas!