A Mishmash in Scottish Meanderings

Monday 13th August

Just been to my table tennis group and taking a quick break before going for a walk. I’m really pleased that I’ve managed to go every week since starting and not had to miss any sessions at all. They’re a lovely group of people and I’m gradually getting to know them. I’m disappointed in the level of coaching though - we have one coach, Charlie, who presumably is getting paid to coach and although he’s a lovely man, he just doesn’t ...... coach! Unless you ask him. Which we shouldn’t have to do.

His wife, Brenda, is really nice and she gave me a good half hour of practice this afternoon before I played any games which was invaluable. Once you get into a game - especially if you’re playing with much more experienced players - there’s too much to think about and you don’t get time to concentrate on everything so when someone takes the time to have a few practice rallies with you, it can make a huge difference to your play and morale.

What also made a big difference was that they had a high tea last month to which I was invited. I got all excited when I heard it started at 4.30 because I haven’t been able to go out in the evening to anything apart from the odd meal with family so 4.30 was totally doable! It was a bit daunting walking in by myself but Charlie had made sure I sat at their table and everyone made me really welcome, especially the guy sitting to my left - Stuart - he chatted away to me right from the get go and we actually found we had a lot in common.

A few of the guys have got together and formed a sort of ‘band’ - mainly guitars and ukuleles - and whenever there’s a social event, they get up and have a jamming session so they entertained the rest of us with hits from the 50s, 60s and 70s which was brilliant - they also provided songsheets so that we could all sing along as well which was great fun. The whole thing finished just before 9 and I walked back to the car totally chuffed with myself, feeling like I’d been on a proper night out!


A couple of weeks ago, the girls were all in Palma Nova in Mallorca with Nikki’s friend, Tracey, and her 5 year old daughter, Emily. Jokingly I told Nikki to keep a look out for the Aquasol Aparthotel which was where Boyd and I had stayed when we had gone on holiday there 33 years ago a year after we were married - I was amazed I could easily recall the name of it - it’s weird what rubbish our brains store isn’t it?!

During the week, I got a text from her with a photo of the place saying “I bet you didn’t think your daughter and 3 grandchildren would be walking past this place when you were staying there 33 years ago!”

Oh how I wish that ‘3’ was a typo.

On the day Willow died she came over with the girls ‘to say goodbye’ to him. She disappeared upstairs for half an hour then when she came back down, asked me if I wanted some more bad news? It seemed to be a rhetorical question because me saying “Em no thanks” made absolutely no difference in the slightest.

She then proceeded to tell me she was pregnant again .......

You may remember me mentioning in a previous entry that she had met this guy, Duncan, and within 2 months, the whole thing had got extremely intense. They both thought they had found ‘the one’, had talked about marriage, she’d picked out a ring and began going to wedding exhibitions and they were all set to move into a slightly larger house across the road with an extra bedroom. (The house belonged to Tracey’s boyfriend, Russell - they were moving in together so he was renting it out - an ideal situation for her really as her best friend would effectively be her landlady).

I was very dubious about the whole thing, mainly because they both had kids - Duncan had a 9 year old son from his previous relationship plus another boy of similar age who was his ex’s son but whom he treated as his own. He was also living with his parents and didn’t appear to stick at a job for very long so, to me, neither of them seemed to be in a particularly great position to be going hell for leather into a long-term future.

As far as I’m concerned, you should be proceeding cautiously when there are little ones involved because what does it matter if you have to wait a year or so to be together? If you really have met ‘the one’ then it won’t make any difference will it? And it also gives you both a chance to get to know the other one properly which 2 months just ...... doesn’t. So I was doing a lot of eyerolling and tongue holding, hoping fervently it was all going to work out.

Duncan knew about the baby and was totally supportive - all ready to be one big happy family. But once Nikki was pregnant she found she totally went off him and couldn’t stand him near her. She said she saw him as more of a ‘friend’ than a ‘lover’ and she pulled out of a camping trip they were all supposed to be going on the week before Mallorca, saying she needed some space. Naturally enough, he was beside himself with worry and hurt and bombarded her with texts, desperately trying to find out what was wrong and what he could do to help.

So this was the state of play when she finally deigned to tell me about the baby (she’d known for 2 weeks already at this point) and I tried not to show how disgusted I was at the sheer lack of responsibility and the way she was treating Duncan. To make matters worse, she said she’d decided she wasn’t keeping the baby but she wasn’t going to tell Duncan - she was just going to go ahead and get it done before she went on holiday ‘and then at least she could enjoy the holiday’.

Words failed me.

Thankfully the following week, she had a change of heart and decided she’d keep it so Duncan is in the dark about that bit and hopefully will remain so. I was fervently hoping being away from him for a week would make her miss him and this blip was all just hormonal but if anything, it’s made it worse. She no longer wants anything to do with him and can hardly bring herself to give him civil replies to his worried texts and would, in fact, have ignored him altogether when she got back if I hadn’t been there that day.

She had told him to stop all contact before they flew out and refused his request to come over to see her the night before they left and he complied with this. They were supposed to fly back last Tuesday evening, getting in to Aberdeen at 10 p.m. but the plane was delayed and didn’t leave Mallorca until 2.30 a.m. on Wednesday morning so they didn’t get home until 20 past 6 in the morning. Of course Duncan didn’t know that so when he hadn’t heard anything by teatime on Wednesday, he began texting her again. I had gone out late afternoon to see them, giving them a chance to catch up on sleep first.

She couldn’t deal with the texts and was calling him all sorts, all set to ignore him so I lost no time telling her how callous and horrible she was being to him and that he deserved to know what she was feeling then he would at least have something to go on - not telling him anything was just cruel and would ensure he would just contact her more. Thankfully she listened and concocted a message to send him, checking it out with me first. Naturally he wasn’t too happy with it but I felt at least he would know where he stood.

Unfortunately I know only too well how this will play out because I’ve been on the receiving end of it myself this last year. When I was really ill and unable to look after myself she was coming in to see me twice a week - before Lily went to swimming on a Tuesday teatime and after Lilah's swimming lesson on a Thursday morning. At first she would stay around an hour but that soon decreased until I was lucky if I saw them for 10 minutes and eventually she said the Tuesdays were too much of a rush and she was going to cut them out altogether.

So that left Thursdays. I was existing on Tesco’s subs and sandwiches at the time because my appetite was so poor so I would get her to get some for me - that plus yoghurt and orange juice was basically the only shopping she was getting for me - any other stuff I needed I would just wait for Ian (my brother) to get as he was coming across fairly regularly from Fort William (4 hours away) at that point to see his new grandson and to check up on me. Janice (my best friend) was also cooking extra meals when she cooked for herself and would periodically take in several batches of those so that I could keep them in the freezer. She and other friends had offered to get my shopping but I felt a regular shopping trip was too much to ask of a friend (especially if they worked full-time) and it should be something a family member should be doing.

She started using the shopping as an excuse not to stay - so if I asked her to get any she would say she had no time left to visit (Tesco is literally 10 minutes drive away from the house) so I would then hardly see Lilah and of course wasn't seeing Lily at all. Eventually the Thursdays also stopped altogether and she made it plain she was fed-up doing the shopping. By then though at least I was able to get some delivered so that the big stuff was taken care of but I still really needed someone to get the little bits and pieces in between.

And then just before Christmas I got the flu to add to the fun and was really incapacitated so I was late in getting a shopping list together for a big shop. Having never used the delivery service before I had no idea that certain times of the year would be really busy and there would be no delivery slots - I just thought it would be like the postal service and they would take on extra staff to cope - so I wasn't prepared for not being able to get anything delivered AT ALL before Christmas and had to desperately ask Nikki to go to Tesco the Saturday before Christmas, on the 23rd. She point blank refused.

Ian & Margaret were coming over on Christmas Eve and promised me they would easily go for me but I realised the shop would shut early and they might not get here in time. Luckily a friend texted me that Saturday lunchtime and said they were sitting in Tesco's coffee shop and did I want anything shopping-wise? What a godsend! Nikki did actually feel guilty enough to text later that afternoon and offer to go to the local Co-op in Pitmedden for me but I was shocked at just how callous she’d become. Then in the New Year I was pushing myself to try and drive again and finally managed to get to Tesco myself as long as I used the staff car park round the back which was much quieter and meant I didn't have to deal with any traffic lights.

Christmas Day itself was a disaster which I've written about and after that Nikki stopped all contact completely. I became really stressed about it and Ian, thinking he was helping, phoned her to try and sort it out. Of course that just made it worse especially as he told me she had said she had been in contact with me every single day (I had just gone 8 whole days without any contact at all) so I realised if she was going to blatantly lie like that I didn't have a leg to stand on. I was too ill to fight my corner so I was just going to have to try and get through it myself and so I stopped saying anything to Ian and just concentrated on getting stronger so that I could regain some independence.

It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I appeared to be being blamed for being ill as far as I could see which made no sense - we had been so close previously that being ignored and only given the most basic of information when she only absolutely had to was a big shock and took a lot of getting used to. And of course I was hardly seeing the girls at all which was even worse - it was very much a Red Letter Day when I was finally able to stand being driven down to Lily's swimming lesson on a Tuesday afternoon so that at least I was then able to see them for a couple of hours once a week.

There's more - much more but it's thoroughly depressing writing it all out. Basically she was cold, callous and cruel when I really couldn't look after myself and of course everyone thought she was being the dutiful daughter - Janice was absolutely furious when she found out and it took all her strength not to go out to Pitmedden and tear her off a strip!

Anyway, gradually as I regained more control over my life, things began to get better. She made absolutely no compensations for my illness and still doesn't - at the moment she's pushing me to babysit in the evenings or take the girls overnight which is literally impossible and she asks me to look after them numerous times during the month which I do gladly but there have been times I've clearly overdone it and been exhausted and she just doesn't give a monkeys.

Since she's found out she's pregnant there's almost been a complete turnaround and I'm finding it really hard to deal with. She's started texting me about little things again and involving me in her daily drama and while on the one hand, it's nice to be 'Mum' again, on the other, it's almost like she's acting like the last year hasn't happened and I don't quite know what to do with that.

I'm also a bit puzzled as to how she's ended up like this. She was always a selfish kid but never as bad as the behaviour she's displayed this last year - and I'm now starting to wonder about her best friend, Tracey. Tracey latched on to her when she arrived in Pitmedden and Nikki has relied heavily on her to help her out with all sorts of situations. Tracey has a 5 year old daughter whom she treats like a friend and who, in turn, has latched on to Lily. She is a really annoying kid but it's not her fault - she's just terribly insecure and literally has to do everything Lily does or have everything Lily has, to the point of being ridiculous and Tracey keeps encouraging it.

I've always considered Tracey as someone with her head screwed on properly but now that Nikki's talking more to me she's telling me stuff about her which is worrying me slightly, to the extent that I'm beginning to wonder if that's where it's all gone haywire because Tracey's had such a big influence on Nikki. I was talking to someone who knows them both yesterday and they thought this actually made a lot of sense but the worrying thing about this is that if this is correct it’s maybe not a good idea for Nikki to go for this house across the road because then Tracey would have a lot more control over her.

I may actually have a bit of influence in this as over the years, I’ve had intuitive ‘feelings’ about people which have turned out to be true, even if it appears to fly in the face of reality at the time. Nikki has seen this play out so many times that she now actually asks me to check out photos of anyone she's going out with just to see if I ‘feel’ anything untoward about them! As a result of this, she wants me to check out the house and see if I have a good feeling about it! It’ll be interesting how that pans out and if she’ll take any notice if I come up with anything. (Don’t worry I won’t lie - if I have good feelings I’ll tell her that).

I’m sorry this is so long and involved - I’ve tried to write it many times but it’s really hard to write such horrible things about your own daughter. However it’s had such an impact on me that I really don’t know what to do with it. I feel I can’t just forget about it because it was too significant but I also know some of you have done just that when things haven’t gone well with your own offspring in periods of your life. I’m not sure whether to have it out with her later on down the line when we’re back on track again or whether I should leave it be so any advice on this from those who have been through it would be welcome.


On to happier things.

I’ve got the big Six-O birthday coming up next month and was getting very stressed at the pressure to do something major to celebrate it because I knew I wasn’t well enough yet. I’m not what you’d call a party animal so a big get together would never be on the cards anyway but I did want to do something special, especially because last year’s birthday was so hellish. So after a bit of a think I decided what I’d really like to do is to have a meal with my family (actually I wish there was some way to have a family get together without food being involved - it’s the conversation I really want and the food often gets in the way!) and then plan something big for next year when hopefully I’ll be a lot better!

So we’re having a late lunch or afternoon tea (still to be decided) on the 8th or 9th of September at the Walled Garden café at Fochabers Castle which is roughly half way between Aberdeen and Inverness - that means the folk up north and north-west won’t have so far to come as if it was in Aberdeen. We’ve also had 2 very nice family meals there before when Mike, my brother in London, has been through in Inverness visiting or competing in swimming competitions and Catriona, my niece, had her wedding at the Castle in 2012 which was really special.

At the moment, two things are vying for the ‘next year’ part. One is a holiday to Italy - unsure exactly which bit - maybe a cruise? - and the other is an e-bike which I’ve been hearing so much about recently and which 2 of my faves have and are thoroughly enjoying. At the moment my money's on the holiday and it would tie in with another thing I've been wanting to do which is take Italian lessons again. I took Italian in school and college and loved it and I'd love to refresh my learning of that beautiful language once more. Also when Janice heard of my plans, said she would love to learn it as well so is up for going to classes with me. Only thing is, she works full-time so they would have to be in the evenings and evenings are still a problem for me right now so hopefully we can work round that somehow.

Janice and I are also going to do something together as her 60th birthday is on the 22nd October. We’ll go out for a meal or maybe see what’s on at the theatre or something. When we were 21, we had a joint birthday party with family and friends at a local pub which was great fun - I can still see Janice and I in our dresses from Maroc, rocking to Rod Stewart’s ‘Stay With Me’ and marvelling at my nephew, Alistair, who was just a baby, sleeping through all the noise! I can also remember my oldest nephew, Arran, who was only 3, dancing the night away to all the disco sounds of the day :). I must see if I can unearth photos of it and share them with you for a laugh.

Ok this is long enough. It's now Saturday - Ian & Margaret are through for the weekend and I’m hoping to join them for a meal tonight so better go and get ready. We're just going to have a meal at Catriona's and I've been told Matt's taken his very first steps today so I hope there's a repeat performance for his great-aunt when she arrives!

I'll leave you with a photo of a very chuffified Lily because she hardly made a cheep when her front tooth finally fell out yesterday (it's been on the verge for days). Normally there are copious tears and much wailing at 'all the blood' so she was delighted at being able to have it wobble out and not cry and wanted to tell Granny!


They were here for 6 hours on Thursday and for part of that time we decorated ginger biscuits. Here are the results. Ian had one yesterday and declared it 'delicious' but I have to confess the biscuits were Tesco's own spiced ginger cookies (can totally recommend them) - we just added the fancy bits!