Oh dear, I am feeling quite tired and world-weary. This post isn't going to be the catalogue of excitement the title has led you to expect, I'm afraid. I am definitely lacking in joy and enthusiasm. The high point of my weekend was watching the first half of the newish Ultimate Avengers film (or whatever it's called - and heck is it a tedious watch - I had to turn it off because I just didn't care how it was going to end) and trying to decide which one of them I 'would' if I had to. Iron Man? Lovely eyes, nice physique and great intellect plus sense of humour but self-obsessed or Thor, because he's simply 'manly' and there isn't anything metaphorical to have to grapple with. I didn't come to a decision but it was verging on Iron Man because from some perspectives he would be a lovely novelty.
The low point of my weekend in case you're interested, was lifting the blind of my street-side kitchen window at half past two on Sunday morning and asking the skate-boarders who were filming themselves crashing into our gable wall (yes, you read that right) to bugger off.
The medium point, while we're at it, was deciding to decimate the ancient grape vine that has grown with such strength and rapidity over the last few years that it has obliterated all sunlight from the rear downstairs of our house, while OH took the kids out. It was one heck of a job. And I did a really naughty thing, which was to gather up all the vines, leaves etc and stuff them over our garden fence, leaving them to rot in our horrible next-door neighbour's garden. This isn't as bad as it sounds as they rent their house and do not use the garden, which is completely overgrown, to the tune of ten-foot high vegetation. I am sure they never even open their back door so this is unlikely to cause them concern and it saved me lugging the stuff to the recycling centre. But if I had any sense I would notice that an innate tendency I have to take risks, which I tend to suppress, is rearing its head.
Despite the determined tone on which I ended my last blog post, I have now booked OBrother a ticket home for the end of November. I was told he had changed his mind and that he will come back again in January, but when I saw him today - we were forced to communicate because they needed my help at the bank - he said, 'I told you I'd go if I didn't find any work.' Tempted as I was to respond, 'No, you didn't, and anyway I told you not to come because you won't find any,' I kept my mouth shut. I presume he feels this is a definitive signal that he is off, but I'm pretty sure I can't trust OH not to keep inviting them back again next year. (OBrother then started to show me bits of paper he'd printed off at the job centre this morning but I couldn't face looking at them with him. And wasn't sure why he's still looking for work if he's going and don't want to ask what will happen if he finds another few days' work somewhere - might he change his mind and stay?) It turns out he has now argued with OH about why I have booked him two items of luggage for the journey back, despite the fact that they spent literally hundreds of Euros on excess luggage at the airport in Athens and getting boxes of stuff shipped here after that. Fifteen quid per item seems like a bargain by comparison. And if you think there was subliminal suggestion going on, on my part, that he doesn't leave anything here when he goes, I hold my hands up to it. He also agreed, today, to me booking him a coach ticket to the airport, as his flight leaves at 8am on a weekday and this would cost a lot less that OH driving him there at an awful time, ahead of a working day. But OH angrily informed me this evening that if I can't change OBrother's ticket to a Saturday for him, he will be driving his brother there through the night. Insane - OH picked the day and flight himself! I guess I need to be prepared for him exhibiting more and more extreme, irrational and protective behaviour as the likelihood of his brothers going increases.
Back to today and I had asked OH to tell the brothers to meet me outside the bank at 2.15, before I went to get Babe2 from pre-school, but they hadn't listened and had gone there immediately. After waiting there for twenty minutes or so they came to hammer on my front door to find out where I was. I was in the middle of completing and organising all the required paperwork - proving that they live at our address is tricky, but I'd had a meeting with the bank manager this morning and think we'd got around it - and not very pleased to be disturbed early as it meant an entire precious day of me-time was lost between trips back and forth between school, pre-school and Lloyds TSB, because of inconvenient timings. If you're wondering why I had relented and was filling in the paperwork, it is because OH was reaching the point of desperation trying to do it himself, and get clear answers from the bank regarding the paperwork required (six visits, oh how I wish I could have been a fly on the wall and overheard the conversations) and was threatening to take a day off to sort it out, which is something we can't afford for him to do.
DBrother glowered through the process, or at least that's how it felt to me, but perhaps he was feeling embarrassed at once again being beholden to me against his will. I hope that's the last time I have to help someone who is not talking to me apply for a bank account. It must have looked suspicious to the cashier. I suppose I could have cleared the air by expressing forgiveness and offering an apology but I am red hot angry (perhaps I should watch that 'red hot' actually) at his ongoing determination to stay here against the odds. I don't think he will dare turn up at ours to live if he can't pay for the rent - surely not? - but who will end up funding his trip home? Who knows.
In fact I am continuing this blog post after a heart-stopping couple of hours. The brothers arrived on the doorstep after OH got home, apparently claiming that Mr Khan was kicking them out. Something to do with them complaining about the electricity going off
during the day, but I suspect he has the hump at them cooking in the
bedroom. OH went round to sort it out and I presume everything is now ok, but I was really stressing! Afraid that they would be turning up this evening with all their clobber to spend the next few weeks here. Imagine how much worse that would be than it was before, with one not speaking to me and the other being civil to my face but going at me me behind my back! Surely their dealings with Mr Khan demonstrate the tenuous thread on which they are existing here?
Which, despite the mean stuff I'm saying and the bitchy tone - you don't need to tell me that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit - is the crux of the issue. I KNOW that the brothers have no long-term future here. For so many reasons. That isn't an unkind, superior and unduly negative 'I know', it is an 'I know' that is born from a realistic and open outlook. It is an 'I know' that I communicated to them before they came, and an 'I know' that OH refused to listen to. It is an 'I know' that he trampled on, knowing what having them here might do to me, a lover of my own space and a person who lacks patience and tolerance in the face of unrealistic and un-strategic thinking:
OH spent some time with us this weekend, but not as much as I would have liked him to. He can't let the brothers just get on with stuff without getting involved himself - they have been doing some work for a friend - and it drives me nuts. He disappeared at 9am on Saturday, to take them to the bank. Then spent ages in the roof looking for tools for them, then came with us to the supermarket, and then disappeared again. (Our roof is leaking and our downstairs toilet remains unflushable.) Last evening he did not bother getting back in time to eat with us, despite having agreed the time and I'd done his favourite. (Roast lamb - what else?) There have been lots of covert phone calls, early in the morning and late at night, but if I pick up the phone it goes dead, so I have taken to picking up the receiver and saying 'Who the hell is it?' in Greek. I don't know. I feel undermined and set against. And suspect it is going to get worse, while the brothers decide what they are going to do, rather than better. I think OH will wriggle all he can to avoid coming out of this looking unreasonable himself.
Could I come up with a plan that would get us all back on side? Just while I plan when to cut and run, of course.
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