It's all abaat faaam-lee.

On Sunday I was dragged to a family do-thing, because my rents reckon that "Gareth's at Uni working hard" only works as an excuse to get out of it when I actually am at Uni. Which is just a technicality.

I always hate these things. They tend to be so sedate, yet rigidly pompous with a hint of smugness thrown in for good measure. Plus I have to dress up smart. And I don't do smart.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of my family I like. It's just that these tend to be the younger generations and not the fossils who are in charge. I have absolutely nowt in common with them, and am never keen on the way that they like to point out what a dissapointment I am to them, before finding me little jobs to do around the house. I do quite well at avoiding them though, as I hadn't seen my grandparents in a good 2 years.

In the end it wasn't as bad as I expected. Age seems to have softened Granny and Grandad a bit, terrible for them but great for us. It means that Granny has gone from talking none-stop about the Neighbour's scandalous hose-pipe use and the general decline of the country to quietly sitting slumped in a chair, looking confused. Grandad also seemed more mellow. Though of course he still told me to get a haircut and a job. At least he didn't go on his rant about there being "a n*gger in every television programme" for once.

Both also seemed generally pleased to see me. Though I suspect that this may have been a spot of acting, as when we were later back at their house I noted that the shelves containing numerous pictures of their aleged six Grandchildren, didn't feature me or my sister once. The bloody cheek! I know I'm no oil painting but neither are my cousins.

My stomach was churned a few times. Firstly during the twotoomany conversations I was trapped into having with the 90 year old great (but not in any other sense) uncle, who wreaked of embalming fluid and couldn't resemble Lord Voldemort any more if he tried. I was seriously scared. Especially when he stopped talking and froze for a good 10 seconds, making me think that he'd actually died on me. He told me off for not liking sport, but congratualted me on loosing "a few ounces" since he had last seen me. A few ounces? Six stone more like, you cheeky fucker.

Then secondly when my Grandad forcefully made me sit with a cousin and talk to her about my uni course, because she's wanting to do something similar. Later he revealed that he was playing match maker because he thought I had my "eye on her".

:(

I didn't think we were that posh.


x