Turbulent Week

It has been a turbulent week and I wanted to blog about it but I couldn't, what with the family around and their noses poking everywhere...

Where should I begin? Ah...yes!
The laptop incident.

Before the family arrived I put a password on my laptop so they wouldn't be able to go in to it and read this stuff and what I've written about them etc. while I was at work.
The first day my nephew was at home on his own (he brings his own Macbook, I've got a Dell laptop) I receive a text message from him ''what is your laptop password because my charger doesn't work and my laptop's battery died''.

Fat chance. I had to protect myself and prevent family and colleagues and anyone else I write about, from reading this blog!  This is why I come here to rant, because I can't say it to their faces, so they should never read this.
So I called him....and I lied! I pretended that I didn't know how the hell my laptop all of a sudden had a password, as I never set one up myself.  Thankfully, my nephew, as progressive, smart and modernised he is, he is not as computer literate as his evil auntie!
Therefore, he bought the lie!  I told him I will look into it when I get home, which I did and continued the big lie by telling him an obscure story that I did a system restore and my laptop went back to its original settings with an old passport which I found written in some old notebook.  The sweetie nephew believed it and I felt horribly for lying to him, but I also felt relieved.  So while him and my sister were here I cleared my bookmarks and my history and didn't come near this place at all. Oh, how I missed it! I only tweeted from my Blackberry and that was it.

So the sister arrived Sunday afternoon after I spent the whole day licking the house literally, I waited for her at the station for an hour. I was glad to see her but I knew what was coming.  Don't get me wrong, I adore my sister, we get along very very well, she's always been there for me, we laugh a lot, we have the same sense of humour, but she is very demanding and completely opposite of what I am and stand for.  I am more relaxed, artistic, literary, a bit aloof sometimes, approachable and flexible.  She has a closed personality, she always had very wealthy friends, which made her live or want to live the high life with less than half the money her friends have.  She has a in-house maid which means that she expects to find the same standards when she comes to my house, but she doesn't realise that I work all day and have limited hours to clean, go to the supermarket and do my chores on my day off.  Which concludes on her being a pain when she is here... 'you have to do this', 'you have to do that', 'this needs changing', 'your walls need painting over' etc.

When she came in she turned on ALL the lights, because she can't look at dark places, she wanted to watch the Golden Globes and, I'm sorry but my block of flats doesn't allow satellite dishes so I don't have Sky, so she sort of told me off for living here (!!!), she asked me to remove half of my clothes from my closet so she could fit hers (she brought two suitcases for a week!!!) and found the house impressionably clean but she said it still needed a lot of work (????!!!). This makes me sound like I am a dirty sloth, but honestly, the house was very clean, C-L-E-A-N!!!  How much cleaner can I house be? I'm telling you she's obsessed.

Next, she would go on about my personal appearance: my clothes, my hair, my teeth (while she had braces put on when she was younger I hadn't because of course we could only afford for one back then and of course her teeth were more important than mine, so mine are a bit crooked), now she says 'I have to save money to put braces on'!!!!

I can't complaint though, she paid for my haircut and it looks good, but the scrutiny and the constant criticising never stopped!

But all of the above are nothing in comparison to her spending money. She spends uncontrollably, with no second thought and with no realisation that this is not extra money, but the little money her small business makes just to make ends meet.  Two years ago she nearly went bankrupt and it was very difficult to stand on her feet again with the economic crisis, and that even didn't teach her a lesson.  Ever since her son came to the UK to study she's been in London THREE times! That's three times in four months!!!
And there's always an excuse. First time it was to help my nephew settling in in the University.  Fair enough. The second time it was with no reason, just hopped on a plane on a Friday afternoon and nearly gave me a heart attack because of course I had only two hours to air and clean the house before she would come.  This time it was an exhibition to buy things for her store.  She only went to this exhibition for one afternoon and for the rest of the week it was just spend, spend, spend and MORE spend!!!!

She would take a black cab most of the times, while most of us, normal people, would go on the bus or underground.  But she was always 'feeling sick', 'too tired', 'too cold' and I live 'too far away' from the centre so we must hurry to catch the last train. We are talking about £15-20 cab rides each time.
And then there's the water.  She would buy mineral water to drink, while the water from the tap is perfectly pure and safe.  I told her this and she agreed, but still, I caught her buying water again... Pound coins scattered here and there...It broke my heart.
She was ready to buy a new charger for her son's laptop (that's about £60), when I reminded them that the Macbook was still under warrantee but the silly boy hadn't brought it with him, so someone has to email it to them. They still haven't done it...

As she would criticise me about everything, I tried to put a bit of sense into her mind about the spending, but she would stop me.  So it was ok for her to scrutinise me about all the details in my life but if I wanted to give her my two cents about her relentless spending I had to shut up. Well, as I am a person who knows how to shut up and not create a scene, that's what I did but I am worried and unless we win the lottery I won't stop worrying.

Now for the good things:

• We had a fabulous day together on my day off, we went to the hair salon and had our hair and nails done.
• We went to Somerset House and looked at some amazing paintings and we cultured ourselves!
• It was nice having company at home at night, we would sit and watch DVD's and talk and laugh, I really liked that.

Now that I'm back I will write more often, as I will certainly remember more details to write about my turbulent week.

For now it's goodnight and a very warm WELCOME to my first follower, FranceRants!