My mother has made absolutely no concession for me at all. She refuses. She allows me no space in the house to call my own privately, she wouldn’t even allow my toothbrush to be out visible in the bathroom! She snapped at me, nastily, that it was "making the place look like a shit hole". Seriously?
Difficulties created by moving to a different country are dismissed as being non-existent (bet they'd exist if she moved – in fact, because the difficulties are too much for her to even face, she later flatly refused to do so.) She brushes it off as insignificant and unimportant if I feel the cold here after 16 years in a sub-tropical climate and certainly would not allow any heating until it suited her.
But if we imagine it the other way around ... When she had come to my house, if I had not bent over backwards to adapt everything for her convenience, then I was subjected to a tantrum and accused of being a very bad daughter indeed.
And, remember she's been BEGGING my friends to ask me to come back here for years and telling me that it will be "my house too" when I got here.
This, of course, she now says, was before she knew what I was like!
Of course she knows what I'm like. Or, has she really been that inattentive and indifferent to her only child for 50 odd years? What is wrong with this picture?
She was clearly hoping I'd conveniently forget that I know what she's like.
Having left behind a latex mattress that I bought specially because of my bad back - I was diagnosed as having a problem when I was 16 - I find absolutely no concession will be made over the bed here. I'm getting very little relaxed sleep and waking up every morning more tired and aching more than the night previous. I also don't have my heat pad, which I really can't survive without. So, I'm being ultra careful not to get damp and cold to make myself worse.
Grant me some knowledge gained through experience.
I need a water supply in the toilet, because of a history of recurrent cystitis and pyelitis (since I was 17), but she won't allow me to keep a jug of water in the separate loo, because it "won't look very nice." Me screaming in f*cking agony probably won't look very nice either, but that, apparently, doesn't matter.
One of the first things that hit me when I got here is that there is no FOR SALE board up on this house that is supposed to be listed with an estate agent.
I haven't even broached this subject yet, but there's a definite recoil reaction any time something property related is mentioned or she thinks it's going to be. My intuition still tells me that she has no intention whatsoever of doing anything.
(The intention discussed with her and upon which she indicated her entire consent - i.e. she was lying - before I came back was that I would come here for 3 months, help her pack, and we would both move to a third country once the house is sold. She has been clearing out possessions, in supposed preparation for this, but I can tell that a) she's about to claim that 'circumstances have changed' and b) she's already moaned to others that I 'made her' get rid of her 'beloved' things. Sh*t, I wasn't even here to have any influence on which things she got rid of!)
Hoping to enjoy a house where everything works was an entirely vain hope. I keep finding things that are worn out, broken or that should be changed, if not for everyday use, would have to be to sell the house for any decent price.
The toilet cistern is badly worn out, the flush has to be held down and generally takes two or three flushes to clear even a small bit of paper.
The water pressure is lower than the pathetic trickle I had in Tenerife and, combined with the boiler being set to luke warm (for money saving waaaaay beyond the point of meanness), means there is no shower and not enough hot water is produced to fill a bath. She doesn't shower or bath ever (I discover) and, she gets her hair done out. And I do what exactly?
When I did use a little water ONLY INSIDE the bath to wash my nether regions, she went into blind panic, because (she claimed) there was "water everywhere". It’s a place where water is supposed to be FFS! This had to be immediately dried, as if it was going to create a tidal wave or similar disaster.
There are also several tiles coming away from the wall of the bathroom.
In the kitchen, several cupboards (they are cheap and dated anyway) are in a poor condition; drawers don't open, etc. Appliances are on their last legs.
But there's nothing wrong and she can't do anything.
Not even as a small "investment" to save having to drop the price by many thousands. The only other hope, I said then, is to sell the ample plot to a developer, but she absolutely won't do that either.
The washing machine was broken when I arrived too and was only, finally, repaired after several weeks. Not a lot of help to me with such a limited wardrobe from only being able to bring one 20 kilo suitcase. Not to mention that these are summer clothes only, but the temperatures here are winter (to me.)
My expectations were low, but this is is absolute hell.
