Family Affairs and other matters

BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND

I’m off to see my father in hospital.  My mother said that this week he was attached to seven wires and five bags.  Not good.

I dropped my daughter off at school this morning.  She’s got a detention today.  She told me that her punishment involved watering the Cannabis plants in the biology lab.  Surely not.

Kids off to their dad’s new house to swim all bank holiday weekend in their new pool.  I am making plans to turn my back garden into a theme park of some description.  Maybe I’ll put a pool in too.  Or a zoo.  Or a helter-skelter.  Or maybe all three.  Not sure yet.

Competitive divorce parent?  Moi?

THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST

After the initial shock and slight panic of finding ourselves stuck in transit in Dubai instead of home in London I gave up fretting about how we would get home and who and what we were missing and we all got into the very surreal experience and began to settle in to our new environment, [...]

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NON EXISTENT ASH CLOUD?

Oh. Well after all that there is a distinct possibility there was no danger from an ash cloud:- By Sean Poulter Britain’s airspace was closed under false pretences, with satellite images revealing there was no doomsday volcanic ash cloud over the entire country. Skies fell quiet for six days, leaving as many as 500 000 [...]

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GOOD THINGS AND BAD THINGS

GOOD THINGS

I am no longer a volcanic refugee.
Nobody died.
My kids are all here together again.
The sun is shining.

BAD THINGS

I am no longer a volcanic refugee.
My father is in hospital still. With many wires. They are feeding him via a wire through his jugular into his heart.

My friend is in hospital still. She is being moved into a hospice. She doesn’t want to see her friends at the moment. Only her husband and immediate family. She says she has too much to deal with and hopes I understand. Of course I understand. I just want to make her better again. I took the class today that she normally come to. We always have coffee together afterwards. Her space. I was more aware of her absence than I was of any other person in the room. It was a very hard class to teach.

My boiler has a leak that is pouring through the floor of the upstairs bathroom down through a light socket into the loo below. I have no hot water.

My youngest son wants to join a cricket club.

My teenage son sent me a text saying “just f*cked up chem mock. Should I give blood tmw and can i have a few peeeeps round on sat night. Not v many?”

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BRITISH SECOND WIVES CLUB

According to a report in The Times yesterday there is a growing breed of women who are sick of being demonised as evil home-wreckers and want to vent their spleen at what they say is the unreasonable behaviour of ex-wives – they call themselves “LSSW” – Long Suffering Second Wives.

A support group was set up 5 years ago called the British Second Wives Club which has 3,500 members. Apparently they all have issues about having to deal with difficult ex-wives. Linda Mellor who set up the group is incensed by the attitude of some ex-wives that the divorce is a meal-ticket for life and absolves them from ever working again and asks where is the dignity in receiving money long-term from an ex husband.

Well. Good. Yes. I take her point. Being an ex wife is not a very dignified place to be. But what if you have had a long marriage, children, were committed for life, left a good job to look after the children, have maybe retrained, but a recession got in the way as has the cost of childcare and you have subsequently found that your work doesn’t pay very well and has to be fitted in between drop offs and pick ups. In addition having found yourself on your own with your children you have had to totally reassess your whole life and deal with your partner marrying someone else.

It’s a shame really that it all can’t be easier. First wives no doubt struggle hugely with the concept of a second wife and vice versa – some first wives can feel that they have been discarded and subsequently replaced and there is quite commonly a huge amount of bitterness and hurt because the second wife has inadvertently “taken” their partner before they were ready to let them go.

Yes, of course it’s difficult being a second wife. Meeting a man who already has children and commitments to a previous partner. But if you don’t like it don’t get involved. It’s part of their history. There is going to be another relationship to deal with. You have to be prepared for that. It’s just a matter of trying to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes (easier said than done).

But I am quite sure that it’s also difficult from time to time, being any sort of wife – past, present or future…..and certainly being an ex husband isn’t a great position to be in either, however, we don’t all need to set up a bloody club.

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“GREEN SHOOTS OF RECOVERY”

I had SUCH a lovely holiday in Australia staying with old friends and feeling calm and happy AND finally feeling that being a single parent and going on holiday with my children actually worked brilliantly. I was comfortable in my own skin and didn’t feel like I was missing a limb which was pretty amazing given that both couples that I stayed with are completely in love with each other and a total unit.

However, my reflections on how confident I suddenly felt about being and coping on my own with my two children got severely tested once we arrived in Dubai. Suddenly I went from feeling like a strong, independent, I can do this on my own, woman, to “OMG. HELP!! HELP! I need rescuing. In manner of Penelope Pitstop. Where was my knight in shining armour?”. I panicked for two days. It’s not fun feeling like a refugee and even my daughter had to get me to pull myself together. I went from person on holiday to mother fighting to save her children and get everybody home safely as soon as possible. Just the most bizarre experience.

But now I’m back and getting my perspective back I can go back to my reflections. My “green shoots of recovery” moments were felt most strongly in Sydney, staying with my old friends. Because literally their house is built into the side of a mountain – built around rocks in some parts that stood proudly here and there and set amongst rainforest. From the balcony in their sitting room you actually looked out over the tops of the ferns and trees. Just lovely. So refreshing. It was like living in a treehouse:-

It is always strange coming back to your own house after a holiday. I always find I want to change everything. Throw it all away and start again. Or move. I have noticed many new lumps and bumps in it. BIG handprints on my daughter’s newly painted room on the wall and a huge gash out of the wall in my teenage son’s bedroom – “mum, honestly I HAVE NO IDEA how any of that happened”…..and a belt that I don’t recognise in my room. However, I have decided that it’s probably best not to pursue it any further. Frankly best not to know what’s been going on.

Yesterday teenage son had about 8 friends round for a BBQ. They managed to set the whole bloody thing alight. The temperature on the guage reached the maximum 600 degrees and there were flames billowing out from the whole thing. I had to throw a ton of water on it. It’s a worry. What if that had happened whilst I was away? I made him take some flowers round to the next door neighbours to apologise for throwing half eaten burgers on her whilst she was sunbathing. They made him go into their house and gave him a lecture about smoking.

I’m still busy sorting out stuff I should have dealt with weeks ago. Strange. Not yet back in the flow. But getting there.

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ARE YOU STILL STRANDED?

I am safely back, but many people still are not. I was hearing a horrendous story about stranded passengers at Bangkok airport. My friend just got out of there yesterday. Via Vienna. The amazing thing is that it was only yesterday that Reykjavik airport has been closed for the first time since the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull brought Europe’s aviation industry to a standstill.

UK airlines are seeking volunteers to give up seats so the thousands of people still stranded after the volcanic ash disruption can get home. British Airways has asked customers who are booked on long-haul flights up to 2 May to make way for those who were stranded and Virgin Atlantic says many such volunteers have contacted the airline. But many airlines’ long-haul passengers still face weeks of delays, with re-booked returns stretching into May. This is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. WHY aren’t the airlines putting on extra flights to get everybody back? They can’t just squeeze people here and there on to already fully booked flights and you can’t have people strolling on to planes before those that have been stuck somewhere for days and days. It is totally unacceptable and highly inefficient and what is going to happen when the next, much larger volcano erupts? Apparently Europe might be shut for three months then – last time it erupted Europe suffered the coldest summer ever and it is thought that the volcano might have been previously responsible for the potato famine and indirectly the French Revolution. “We are becoming quite adept at exporting our catastrophes” was a recent quote I read about Iceland.

Earlier BA rejected suggestions it was prioritising new passengers over those stranded abroad. But of course they are. All the airlines are doing that. That’s why there aren’t any flights available for days. Tens of thousands of people are still stuck overseas.

According to a BBC report there are still this many British citizens stranded abroad:-

Egypt: 10,000
Florida: 9,000
India: 8,000
South Africa: 5,000
California: 4,000
Thailand: 2,500
Malaysia: 2,000
Other significant regions: Caribbean (especially Antigua, Barbados, Cuba); Dubai; Maldives

And what about all the people who have got stuck on their journey home?

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