How quick we are to jump to conclusions.

In this case the royal ‘we’.

Well it’s been a good week with the grandchildren staying. They are fun and time consuming and a bit like having two Duracell bunnies under the roof. The AP had to be left for a few hours today when we delivered them back to parents and took over the dog for her annual holiday. We are now running a pack of three Yappy Jacks for the next two weeks.

We collected money for AP at the Post Office on the way back which has been meticulously counted; that facility is intact! We listened to her story about the dogs whilst the long suffering hubs made a much needed cup of tea which involved getting a spoon out of the drawer. AP was in front of this and poor hubs twice asked her to please move but to no avail as the story continued. I then asked her to move so that hubs could access a spoon and this was taken the wrong way. She obviously hadn’t heard hubs and then misunderstood me, screwed up the face and flounced off heading up to her room. It was a moment or two before I realised that AP had thought we had no time to listen to the story about the dogs and had not even realised that a cup of tea was being made despite the kettle being on. What have we done to deserve this and why would we be so deliberately rude. We often listen to the same stories over and over again, accepting that this is part of being old. If AP could just think for one minute she would realise that we are never that heartless but we are becoming heartily sick and tired of dealing with a Jekyll and Hyde personality. With us she is unpleasant, cantankerous, belligerent, childish and obstreperous but with other members of the family, friends and visitors we make an effort and are gushingly sweet and sugary and for a while can play the dear old dotty lady. This effort obviously exhausts her and we obviously don’t matter.

Oh dear, well the pleasant atmosphere lasted all of 15 minutes and the feeling of well being and contentment (an exaggeration) is over and we are back on the treadmill. It really is no pleasure in coming back to our own home. Roll on the 26th September and four weeks of freedom from this tyranny.