Christmas Time with Imelda. Alcohol is needed. :(

I have not blogged for a while - I have kept contact with Imelda to a minimum and have not let him get to me.  I got a new job and my laptop has some driver issue which means I can ONLY connect to the internet via an ethernet cable and not wirelessly which means I have to sit on the floor when I want to go online. Probably excuses but now I have ordered a new laptop so I can sit on the sofa again.
I did take it to 'WEWILLFIXYOURLAPTOP' but they couldn't fix it!

Anyway I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas.  Mine was fabulous with just me the bloke and the kids until just after lunch time on Christmas Day.  We all just had dinner and sat down to watch a film as a family.  That nice full fuzzy feeling when all the washing up is done and the kids are happy and the Disney film is on. About half hour in to the film we hear that 'special' knock at the door and all freeze in horror. Oh Hell no - not today. Fighting the urge to hide and pretend to be out, one of the kids let him in. Cassie hid in the downstairs loo for the entire visit with a snake for company (clearly preferable to Grandad). Imelda gave us a Christmas card and sat down. As he came in we all jumped into overdrive to clear all their presents off the floor - Amazingly, bearing in mind the amount of stuff on his floor in his house, he seems to take it as his right to step on anything on the floor in my house.  We moved all the cushions so he could sit down otherwise he sits on them and moans how uncomfortable he is. (then they all need a wash afterwards). He sat on the sofa and wished us Happy Christmas. Not once did he ask the kids what they had for Christmas. None of them could be bothered to tell him either. It was no surprise he didn't bring his grandchildren presents on Christmas Day as he said he was just passing by. He did however ask the bloke his opinion on shopping around for car insurance at renewal, clearly ignorant or forgetting that I worked in car insurance for fifteen years. Or as I am just a female evidently have no valid opinion. His presents from us remained under the tree until Sunday after Christmas when tradition dictates we have to feed him a meal.

On the Sunday Imelda arrived. Within three minutes of sitting down, he asked me whether I still had the book case I had TAKEN from his house. (I took it and gave it to a friend who had just moved into a new house and needed a bookcase desperately - called SKIP).  For those who are not aware I spent six weeks of Hell clearing his house so he could be released from hospital after he broke his back about four years ago.  There was nobody else to do it, it almost killed me, I got no thanks for it, and it took me the whole of the summer.  Since then the house has been re-hoarded to previous levels and every time he sees me he asks me if I have thrown this or that or the other out.  Despite me telling him until I am blue in the face I only threw out rubbish, he clearly doesn't believe me and assumes I went in with a bulldozer.   He asked me if I had one of the books in the book case.  Like the Hell I can remember.  I threw out all the paperback kids books by penguin which were yellow and musty smelling and available in the library.  I kept any books which looked like they may be rare or signed or anything I was not sure of.  He asked me if I had kept a GROMIT - like a heavy part which came out of a loudspeaker (a broken one) because, you see, the speaker was nothing without it.  Like I can remember!  I told him there was enough pure and utter rubbish to throw out - anything I was not sure of went back in.  He asked where I put it. Seriously!?!
Every time he sees me he asks me if I have seen something he has misplaced.  His plastic kitchen timer, and his Mrs Beeton's cookery book being the most recent.  He has no concept of the time and effort I put in to stop him rotting in hospital - he has no concept that without me doing that he would still be rotting in the hospital (although I suspect the nurses may have shot him by now).

After just five minutes of him entering my house, I wanted a small padded dark place with copious amounts of alcohol. He hadn't bought his hearing aid - either because he had lost it or because he wanted to save the batteries.  I would have thought if there was any occasion where he should have worn the thing it would have been to visit his only grandchildren at Christmas.  Clearly not. It was like trying to communicate with a deaf Martian in Russian. 

My daughter proudly showed him a picture she had drawn. 
'That's nice' he said, obviously completely missing the point.
'CASSIE DREW IT!' I shouted.
'Yes' he says 'Cathy Drewitt'. 
Tumbleweed moment.
The bloke and I go outside for a fag. I remember I don't smoke and never have
Imelda appears.
'Look Dad, we have a daffodil.'
Blank.
'Do you see the daffodil in the garden, Dad?'
'Yes, the postman said the other day he was in Swansea and he saw some, er um, some, um... daffodils you know, yes daffodils. In December, quite amazing!'
About two hours after he arrived, the kids were engrossed in making some craft item they had had for Christmas.  I don't know if he was waiting for some gift giving ceremony or something, but I, being his daughter and as stubborn as him, was not going to go first.
He asked one of the kids 'What do you think is in the bag here?'
'I don't know', she said, clearly not in the slightest bit interested, 'I need the loo.' and she disappeared.
He tried again a bit later and gave them some Lindor Chocs each - they were wrapped in paper that we gave him last year. The kids behaved impeccably and thanked his for the chocolates, overdid the 'what a fantastic present' routine and ripped the paper into tiny shreds as they had been instructed to do by their dad (so he could watch Imelda squirm). The paper he wrapped my chocs in was so old it didn't even make a paper noise - more like cloth.  The one thing I knew was we didn't have to check the dates on the kids' chocolates because they are on offer this week in Lidl for £1.  ;)

Finally the ordeal was over for another year.  I admit I did get through slightly better with support from my friends on Facebook.  They were all sending encouragement and offers of alcohol.  Perhaps slightly rude to be on Facebook during the Royal Visit but it helped me survive without a nervous breakdown.

Merry Christmas all and a Happy New Year. xxx