Thursday, April 12, 2007

Funny day

It was Conall's sixth birthday on Saturday and we had a party at the local Farmshop Coffee shop. Might sound a bit odd, but being carless, the fact that it is close by had a lot to do with my choice and it is run by friends, which was good too. Aswell as running riot in an enclosed space with a trampoline and climbing frames, they got to feed cows and chickens too. Yee ha! He loved it.

Mummy forgot the camera. Ooops.

Today is my mum's birthday, I rang so that the children could sing Happy Birthday, (out of tune and flat, but hey, they hadn't practiced. Apart from Saturday...) but it turned into an odd conversation.

Mum and dad had received a phonecall very early in the morning. Dad's (a bit) deaf and was obviously struggling to understand the conversation, although he knew he was talking to a 'Nora', (struggles to recognise me!) so mum took over. She was also a little puzzled, but dealt with the call without letting on she didn't know what was going on. Afterwards she checked the number, but didn't recognise it and couldn't reconcile it with any in her phonebook, so she did a little investigation with the code and the telephone directory. It turned out they weren't talking to Nora they know in Suffolk, which was why being told about 'David' having died didn't make any sense. We don't have one in Suffolk. It was Nora dad's sister-in-law. His brother David died last night.

Dad isn't bothered. He disowned him during a family argument over thirty years ago. He won't go to the funeral.

I'm sad. I've never met my Uncle David, Aunty Nora or my four cousins. (They have names, I'm just not sure I'll get them right.) I'm sad that I never will now and that I had no choice. I don't want the same for my children, except they have an Uncle and Aunt they don't know, that's not my fault, but I'm going to have to find a way to do something about it before it's too late.

It's turning into an odd day.

2 comments:

Ruth said...

I'm really sorry.

Sigh. Families.

Louise said...

Families. Yes. Strange things. Can't quite get to grips with it all. I prefer to avoid stress, so families don't help!