Annoying Family

Some things in life are bad,

They can really make you mad,

Other things just make you swear and curse,

When you chewing on life's gristle,

Don't grumble give a whistle,

And this'll Help things turn out for the best....

Sage and wise words there, but I'm sat in the office and after a whole morning of base code frustrations causing me to be mad, I've just been on the phone to my Mother.

Now, those of you whom don't know my Mother let me paint a picture, she's broadly the same character as Hyacinth Bucket from the TV Show Keeping Up Appearances  she talks incessantly AT you, not to you, not with you, AT you.  She's highly opinionated to a fault - worse than me - she taught me how to hold an opinion to the point of fault and be stubborn, but she's far worse.  And true story, we once went on Holiday and when we came home British Telecom had sent a letter to query whether the rented phone we had was out of service, because there had been unusual activity on our line.  The unusual activity was there not being any calls made... So there's the scene, a talker, right, she's a talker.

So it was with amazement that today - just a few minutes ago - I get a text "Call home now"... I call... and I'm informed that my Nan has been rushed to A&E - not very well at all she's not... Okay, right... News, information on the fly.

"Oh, and I'm having a major operation tomorrow"... First I'd heard of it, first mention... "I was going to tell you when you last came around".... The last time I went to their house was two months ago... two months, sixty days... Sixty days where there could have been a text, sixty days where there could have been a phone call, no, sixty days of silence.

From Britain's most talkative person!  Silence.

This is all part of the games my mother plays, she plays Chinese whispers back and forth, she plays about with people, she'll say one thing to one person and then withhold it from another and see when she has that whisper come back to her, she does it to pull the strings and ride the grape vine, and she does it because she's basically retired from work and loves to talk, but always wants to feel the epicentre of life.  When really she's just one person, with one person's story, and she's a minor footnote on very few peoples radar.

And so, to withhold this information from me, her eldest son - appears my younger brother knew all along - was part of her shenanigans and games of whispers.  As Robert Jordon describes it in Wheel of Time - She's playing "the Grand Game"; but instead of their being a crown, fortune of kingdom on the line there's just a few poultry facts which needed to be passed out to include other people.

I find this so frustrating, annoying and I wish I could sit and chew on it, but I'm so tired of this bullshit approach, so tired of the whispers and deceit, because that's what it is, its like she withholds things to taut back to you "you didn't know I've been shopping"... I don't care you've been shopping, and you didn't even tell me... its so trivial.. but "I'm having an operation, and you didn't know I'm having an operation"... Erm... I'd have liked to have known, and liked to have been told...

I know for a fact that her inner circle of supplicants knew all about this situation, its only me, the only person who out strips her in the family (for intellect) whom has been kept in the dark.  Because I'm very pragmatic... "oh you're ill, can they fix it?  Good, go get it fixed"... That's my style, and this whole thing is silly its about a problem she had 20 years ago, and never tackled... 20 years is well enough time!  Not least because she can't claim "the kids stopped me"... we left home over 18 years ago... I've now been gone from home longer than I lived there by a fair few years, but she still wants to pull the strings, and this whole episode is here trying it.

Also about my Nan being in A&E... I work right next to the A&E unit, I can see it out the office window... My mother will be in an operation tomorrow... But she's put herself down as primary contact... she'll be miles away in an operation in another hospital... I'm 500 yards away from Nan and available... but Oh no, I can't take that call, I can't sort that out... because that would be my mother ceding control and she can't bare to think of not ruling the roost

Annoying, annoying, annoying fuckers my family are.