I have been trying to complete a blog this evening but it was difficult and I have had many distractions, so I have delved into the archives of The Twitter Housewives blog and dug out this one from last year to amuse you until I can complete the other one… I hope you will forgive me if you have read it before, but I have updated it a little…..
You will probably know, if you’ve read my bio, that I am the proud mother of 3 children. Now child 1 and child 3 have been relatively trouble-free , which is just as well, as darling middle son has caused enough mayhem to last a lifetime…much of which should never be discussed in a public arena!!
Don’t get me wrong. I love him dearly. He was a fantastic baby,( which wasn’t hard after his sister who didn’t sleep for 5 years…..but that’s another story!) ……slept, fed, smiled, gurgled, and charmed all who came into contact with him. He was loving, gentle, cuddly little boy for the first 11 years of his life. On his first day at senior school he gave me a hug, told me he loved me, and trundled off to school. And that, my friends, was the last we saw of said loving son for the next 13 years!
I’ll skip through most of the traumas we went through with him… most of them being my fault as he was, according to him, DEFINITELY treated differently to his brother and sister.
There are a couple of notable ones though. Like the time his father gave him some money for him to buy me a birthday present, while we enjoyed a weekend in Paris. We came home to find he had lied about his age and had his lip pierced with the money! Skip forward a couple of weeks and picture the scene where I am sat on him trying to remove the offending piercing so that he was allowed to return to school to sit his GCSEs!
Then there was the time his bought his younger brother a large bottle of white lightening cider which resulted in 13-year-old being blue lighted to hospital practically comatose! To this day his father doesn’t know it was A that purchased it!
Anyway, back to the present! You know when the phone rings and you hear that plaintive “Muuummm, can you ring me back”
You just know its going to cost you dearly.
We have funded college, music courses, bought numerous guitars,( Why did he need so many?? You can only play one at a time! ), driving lessons ( he never quite got round to taking a test) furnished and paid rent for 2 flats, lived through I don’t know how many girlfriends and broken hearts, funded 18 months of living in London, and then drove there to rescue him and his girlfriend when they decided, after the riots, that they couldn’t live there another day! Guess where they lived then??
Now the current girlfriend, whom he followed to London,( as she obviously wasn’t able to complete her final year at University there without him, despite having survived 2 years perfectly well) is a lovely girl who has had a very calming and positive effect on A. Which has even resulted in him staying in a job for longer than 3 months.
They are renting a small house in the next town to us …..did I mention who paid the deposit, bought the three-piece suite and the car?…and are very happy and have become extremely family orientated. Nothing to do with free Sunday lunches I’m sure!
So, the other week when A rang and asked if I fancied meeting for lunch the next day my immediate thoughts were of suspicion and foreboding. There is no such thing as a free lunch for mum when it involves A!
We met and I, of course, bought lunch. We hedged around for 20 minutes or so until he finally announced that he really wanted to ask L to get engaged but……1) he didn’t have a ring 2) he couldn’t afford a ring 3)he didn’t know when to do it.
Having suggested that maybe a good to time to do it would be when he had saved enough money to buy a ring, it was obvious that was not the response he was looking for. ” But Mum, don’t you remember that old ring of yours you showed me once. You never wear it”
Now the ring in question is one given to me, when I was a mere teenager, by some lovelorn boy, whose name I can’t even remember now. It is a very pretty ring, Sapphire and diamond, not worth a fortune but definitely suitable for an engagement. ”I know it would fit her because it fits K (eldest daughter) and they have same ring size” I find myself cornered as K had already been given a family ring, and felt that if I refused him we would be heading down the “you don’t love me as much as the other 2″ road again
So, home I go, find ring and take it back for him the next day. We then spend the next 2 hours looking for a suitable box for it to go in, off he goes home to hide it until L’s birthday on the following Thursday.
We then had many phone calls in which he agonised how, where, and when to propose. Eventually deciding that he wouldn’t do it on her birthday, but wait til the weekend when they were away camping in the New Forest…very romantic.
I was meeting L for lunch on her birthday and was dared not to mention anything that might raise suspicion, having already been sworn to secrecy and not been allowed to tell his father or siblings. After lunch I had another call to ensure I hadn’t spent the entire time looking at her finger!! I assured him I hadn’t and that anyway he wasn’t asking her until the weekend.
Later that evening my phone rang and I answered to a hysterical L crying down the phone at me “A has just asked me to marry him, and you knew all about it!!” That’s right, he couldn’t wait!! Master Chef was delighted as he thinks L is “smashing” and is planning the wedding breakfast menu! K was already out buying bridal magazines and phoning L to arrange day to look at wedding dresses!!
When K married 9 years ago it was traditional for the bride’s parents to finance the wedding, well according to her in-laws anyway! I mentioned this to A in passing only for him to inform that L’s mum “didn’t have any money and, anyway nowadays it’s normal for both sets of parents contribute to the costs”
So….it looks like I’m saving for a hat now…..and a wedding dress…. and a wedding venue…..and a reception……and an evening “do”…….and a honeymoon too probably!!….
Since writing this blog things have progressed
A date has been set… next year, .on the 10th anniversary of his sister’s wedding
K is being a bridesmaid…are they still called Maids of Honour if they’re married? Master Chef has been lined up as Best Man, and K and G’s boys are rumoured to be page boys
They have decided on a civil ceremony and the venue is booked. A beautiful tithe barn at an old mill. The deposit has been paid……guess who by?!
L, K and I went to a wedding fair and L found the dress of her dreams. a designer dress at half the normal selling price.
The only slight snag being that it has to be bought, paid for and taken away on the day……and there didn’t appear to be anyone else there with the funds to do that except me!!
They are off to book the registrar next week, the cost has been mentioned on more than one occasion but I’m ignoring it!!!
So my previous premonitions are coming true and the way things are shaping up I shall be purchasing my Mother of the Groom’s outfit from Primark!
Hey Ho!!
Thesearegrandmasthoughts 