Hmm, that last post was a bit of a self-indulgent whine, but as my daughter says, "That's what the internet is for!" Of course, me and Trekkie Monster know the internet is for porn, but hey, I can multitask.
So holidays - what do I have against them? Well, its more a case of what they have against me. The fact that the current interest is off with his wife sunning himself in a tropical paradise has reminded me of a nasty trick that life has played on me. I just don't get to have holidays.
I can't really say my parents had a bad marriage. After all, they stuck together for 40 years and who am I to say it was all bad? A fair chunk at the beginning was probably good, and they were kind to each other at the end. It was probably only 10 years or so that they weren't on speaking terms. Its just a shame that ten years had to coincide with my childhood. Thanks, guys. So after my older sisters left home (which they did with unseemly haste the instant they could), there was just me left. Mum and dad used to take it in turns to drag me away on holiday, because they refused to go together. So there was one bored, sullen kid and one bored, resentful adult, stuck in a tent in a field in the middle of nowhere. So that was a riot.
Then there was the occasion after shitface left. Its okay, my daughters know I privately refer to their biological father as shitface. I kept it from them for many a year, but they probably have an equivalent name for him - not that they need a name for an individual who (at his own insistence) hasn't clapped eyes or ears on them in nigh on 20 years.
Shitface came home from work one Friday night, announced he had fallen madly in love with a woman in the office and was leaving with his stuff first thing in the morning. And yes, he was as good as his word. As the door slammed shut behind him, the phone rang. It was my mother. She said, without really pausing for breath:
"Hi, you know your dad's been ill for the last nine months? Well we hadn't really spelt out how bad it was cos we didn't want to worry you,
but the specialists say he actually needs a heart transplant and he's been on the waiting list and a heart has just come up and they're just running the tests now to check his immune system is up to scratch as much as possible and he hasn't got cold or anything but hopefully they'll go ahead later today but we won't know anything for 24 hours so I'll ring you tomorrow. Bye."
As weekends go, it was a bit of a shocker.
Happily dad survived, and by about the Wednesday, I realised I had to get a bit of a grip. A quick tally up revealed that apart from £27.28 in the bank, I had: no money, no income, no assets, no job, no experience, no qualifications, no childcare, no friends (they were all away at uni), no family support (they were still quite busy at the hospital). What I did have was a brand new mortgage, only 4 weeks old, 3-year-old twins and less than 2 weeks to go before Christmas. Which meant that even if I managed to sob my way through a social security interview, I wasn't going to get any cash before the new year. So I rang shit-face, to ask for some money to feed the children with. I was told in no uncertain terms that he had no money for me as he and his new girlfriend were about to get on a plane. Apparently, "Lesley needs a holiday, she's had a really rough time of it recently." Wow, I can't imagine how bad it must have been for her.
Which brings me slap bang up to date. Why aren't K & I having loads of fabulous holidays? In the intervening 20 years, I've sorted the money issue and while I'm not rolling in it, between us we have enough to keep the wolves from the door. Well, we did have one very nice holiday, to Cyprus. Its a beautiful place and I couldn't believe my luck. I thought I'd broken my holiday jinx. Until the last night, when K got the hump and turned on the silent treatment. And on and on, despite all my efforts to jolly him out of it. Eventually I snapped and walked off by myself, determined that I wasn't going to have my last evening ruined by spending it in an atmosphere of tension, just like my childhood. Except when I got back after a not incredibly exciting meal in Pizza Hut, he refused to let me back into the room and an "incident" kicked off. Its not the only time it has happened, and I'm not prepared to go abroad with him for any length of time because I have nowhere else to go. In the UK I can walk away, drive away, let things cool down. I'm not coming home from another holiday covered in bruises.
So no, I don't get to do holidays like other people. Wah. Life's snot fair.
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