Birthday grump.

It was my birthday on Sat. Im 31 now, going on 78. My mother took the children (which admittedly was nice of her) for a weekend so me and Colin got to spend some time together. Well Sat anyway. We were planing to go to Kew Gardens but it was raining and without driving it would have taken us 2 hours to get there. So we went to Tate Modern instead. I didnt bring my camera with me today, so i'll post some pictures later. It was nice and i got a great book for Leo from their shop. After that we indulged in a long peaceful walk along the southbank of the Thames, past the National Festival Hall and the Wheel down to Waterloo. There i remembered that i saw on Ravelry a knitting shop iKnit just around the corner from there, so we went to check it out. It was a lot smaller than i thought, they evidently used wide angle lens to take photos of it for their website. I asked the owner about their weekly meetings and he told me that yes, they have weekly meetings and 20-50 people turn up. Well first, i cannot possibly imagine 50 people fitting into that shop without it being some kind of train in a rush hour experience, second there is a bar there! You see i dont drink, i have intolerance to alcohol so the idea of being stuck standing up with a lot of drunk women in a very small space does not rock my boat. Not one bit. And the owner told me (proudly) that yes, on meeting days there tend to be more drinking and chatting than knitting. Hmmm.

Anyway, they had a sale on so i got myself some Noro Cash Iroha 2 balls in purple and Regia Sock yarn in beautiful varigated whites with pastel rainbow colors. Love love love varigated yarn.

So after that we had lunch in a small Japanese place in Soho and then got some DVDs and went home, to curl up in front of Sin City. I liked it. Violent yes, but beautiful too.
On Sunday it was party time. I started cooking at 10am, people were coming at 3pm. Now i would much rather not to have a party, but you know Russians, they like to celebrate every possible occasion so i sort of had to for my family.

I made a massaman prawn curry, fragrant rice, yellow mung dal, lime and ginger chicken hot pot with sweet potatoes and grated beetroot with garlic and herbs. For dessert i made a poppy seed and tahini roll and carrot cake. I really did cook a lot of food.

My mother arrived in a terrible mood. Absolutely rotten. And from then on it all just went down the hill, with her criticizing everything about me, my house, my way of life, the way i look and the way i bring my children up. With a full blast of " your children will grow dumb because you dont spend time with them and you will burn in hell because you have a Buddha statue in your bedroom". And so on and so forth for 4 hours non stop. Now i know my mother and i know how difficult she is at times, but it was my birthday party and i did make a huge effort cooking. So i could do with a well done or thank you or any of those things. And so eventually my patience run out and i told her (very calmly, honest) that if she hated everything about me and my life so much, then she should leave. To which of course she grabbed her coat and my 15 year old sister and stormed out. Well she tried to storm out but it didnt quite work because she forgot first her bag then her umbrellar and had o send my little sister to fetch it.
So there, im still a bit uneasy about the whole thing and i know she is my mum and all, but iam not apologizing, and im not even feeling guilty. There has to be a limit to how much abuse i can take at one time. And that was it.