Family? What family?

OK well The Bank Holiday weekend went a little strange on me......

My daughter was due to go to her fathers place as she does every other weekend.
However, sheer weight of homework and coursework for her imminent GCSE's (exams you take @ 15 and 16 years old before you leave school (@16) and go to 6th form College) caused her to miss her Ranger Guides meeting on Thursday and as that wasnt enough time to cover it, she suggested she might like to cancel going to her fathers where she would not have a chance to do the work as
a. theres nowhere for her to go to do it and
b. She spends most of every weekend there doing household chores to get the £40 a month pocket money her dad gives her (in lieu of the MANY MANY thousands of pounds he owes me in unpaid child maintenance for the last 12 years of her life since we divorced..)

*Yes thats right- you heard it right*.. she does ALL the housework of someone who has never paid a penny to her upkeep.. ..and if she doesnt do that.. she doesnt get the money. What a guy....nice

Anyway. The second she came in from school on Friday she telephoned her dad and started to explain....

Oh shit.. this was A BAD IDEA.

She put it on speakerphone and shhushed me.

Apparently her father's parents are visiting and a barbecue was all laid on for them; a big family party which they claimed they had told her about, though she had no memory of it.. but that's entirely beside the point.

Her father's reasoning was simply "Your grandmother is here, you have to come, she's old and could die soon so you have to"
----- Ok that sounds like a reasonable argument until you have the facts

a. If she dies soon it might have something to do with the fact she is a very heavy smoker.. and my daughter is a chronic asthmatic so there's a good reason right there not to go, as far as I am concerned

b She chose to go and emigrate to Turkey and be an ex-pat when my daughter was too young to even remember her much, and she has never made much effort to keep in touch with her and no effort at all in getting on reasonably amicable terms with me for my daughters sake.. nor has she provided any assistance, financial or practical or even moral support to either of us.. on the contrary, she has gone out of her way to be a total scum-sucking bitch from hell and the sooner she gets on with it and dies the happier I will be.. and I really mean it so dont tut tut me for it.. you really have no idea the pain this woman has caused.. not just to me but to her own children and other grandchildren over the years . My daughter doesnt owe her a thing.

Ok well then my daughter pointed out that the Homework could not be put off. Its due in mostly on Tuesday, and she also has a speech for her Head Girl Election Campaign to write.. but of course this wasnt good enough, her father continued to rant about how she owes as much quality time with his mother as she spends with mine...
----- sounds kinda reasonable. until you have the facts...

a. My mother has been there throughout my daughters life, from even before Day One of it with a heart full of love, an ocean of time to spend and an ever ready cheque book to provide every extra her father did not see fit to provide. I, as a single mother, out of work, received Income Support Benefit, which barely covers the most basic expenses and my Mum was there always to buy coats and shoes and fees for Brownies and Guides and all the school trips and Guide holidays. She has taken her to France and to Canada and paid for her to go to Austria and France again and Poland and the USA next winter. Shes paid for Theatre trips and Drama classes and Music and all kinds of stuff little girls love to do and bought her lots of clothes and school uniform and.... well the list is endless.. My mother paid for all the things her father should have... and then some. She invites us to Sunday dinner every week, she takes me to get my groceries in her car, she paid for Leisure Club membership so we could go swimming.. and all unconditional.. we dont have to do anything for her... but we do, and do it gladly and without complaint. We owe her everything. She even paid for me to go to the USA and meet Weird Al...

b. My mother lives just 5 minutes walk from our house, not in Turkey.....

I kinda grabbed the phone at this point and asked him why he was doing this.

He started having a go at me and saying I valued Jenny's schooling above her family..... It really is hard to have a battle of wits with the witless isnt it? like duh.

At this point his "wife" (his second marriage was in Vegas and Im not sure how legal that is here,.. particularly as she claims to be a religious Catholic, and though I'm no expert surely the Catholic view would be that he and I are still married?) was heard to start screaming obscenities in the background and this drove my daughter crazy. Actually I have absolutley no idea of most of what she screamed as it totally overloaded the speaker and came out as incoherent screeching .. I dont think this matters much as I'm sure it would have been much the same had she been in the room.

This is a woman so stupid that she believes my Ex-Husband when he tells her he pays regular maintenance to me, despite my daughter having told her a thousand times that it is a lie

This is a woman so dishonest that she got her high up job with British Telecom by forging her credentials on her application

This is a woman so ignorant she says "Riddikerlus" as if banishing a boggart from Hogwarts.

This is a woman so amoral that when my daughter was caught by a store detective trying to shoplift from Primark last year, decided to keep this knowledge to herself as leverage to blackmail my daughter into cooperating with her and giving her false gratitude and has held the threat of telling me all about it over her all this time.. My daughter contritely confessed it to me yesterday and ... lo and behold the world didn't end.

This is a woman so credulous she believes the ghost of her husbands grandmother haunts her kitchen.

This is a woman who, despite being fat and ugly herself finds it necessary to imply that my daughter is somehow deficient in beauty, brains and all other womanly attributes because she has a certain style that doesnt chime with her

This is a woman who bought a house with enough bedrooms for all and still made my daughter sleep on the couch so she could grow weed under lights in "the spare room"

This is a woman who expects my daughter to spend large sums of money on gifts for her, her father and stepbrother every birthday Christmas, Mother's day, whatever and if the gift is crappy or cheap she WILL make a fuss.. and remember, my kid is from a Welfare background...and has no support from her dad beyond the money she earns cleaning this bitch's house

Anyway.. she was screaming that *I* was a thief and a liar and that she was gonna tell me about the Primark thing if My daughter would not obey her father and come play happy families I also heard her say she was sick of the sight of my daughter and she never wanted to see her again... and this is the same bitch that assured me over New Years that she loved her like her own child... Holy Cow..
Her own child is a feral proto gangster who is never in school and who is completely running wild. He's not a particularly happy kid either and everything has to have the latest hip logo or its out of favour.. Trainers £300 and 3 months old arent good enough.. he has to have the latest thing.. while my kid, Cinderella like has to make do with whatever I can provide. Thank god for my Mum

Anyway this BITCH decided to take away my daughters laptop (christmas present from them.. actually acquired on the cheap by a reltive of hers who is a villain) and phone (bought with money that was a birthday gift from them) and she said that the two of them were coming down to take my daughter away by force AND take these things from my house and said she was going to bring the receipts and a policeman so that she could (I told you she was stupid)

Now I really HATE a scene. I am not a fighter and I am extremely frightened of my ex-husband. Yes hes a mild mannered personality free unintelligent insipid dicksplash, but having been *very* nearly murdered by him in 1998 I kind of see him a bit differently.

Lying on the floor with a broken back (well 3 cracked vertebrae) because someone slapped you and pushed you over and have the same someone force a pillow over your face and place a 1" diameter walking stick across your throat and kneel on the two ends of it, until you lose consciousness is not a particularly nice experience, and these are generally not the actions of a person who purports to love you. Thats what ended my marriage to him

Anyway.. back to the present day .... I phoned the police for advice.. not 999 emergency, just the local station for advice and they took down all the details and reassured me that they had no right to take any property or take my daughter against her will, and they basically didnt have a leg to stand on.. They told me to dial 999 Emergency if they showed up. I had several nice chats to WPC 221006 Laura Bryant across the course of last evening and twice today. Luckily they havent showed up.. Phew..
Its so tense here though all the same
I hate the way these people dominate and dictate my life ARGGHH I really hope Jenny really wont go back to seeing them We can do without the pocket money somehow.. we did without it before. The only rweason he is in our lives is because Jenny said "Oh well he *is* my Dad"

Know what?... Being a Father takes a lot more than impregnating some woman... and being a Stepmother takes more than blackmail and snide remarks, and being a Grandmother takes more than turning up one in a Blue Moon and expecting everyone to drop every thing and flock to your side
In other words
Your whole tribe can fuck off.. We don't need you now, nor ever have. We have a way better family of our own.

There! That felt so good!