I really ent looking forward to this at all

[fenwoman]

Son moved house a week ago. Major trauma when he lost is car keys before the move was complete. He phoned me (I live 45 miles away) to help which I did, planning to hotwire the car to get it started (couldn't cos he'd put the steering lock on). So I drove back and forth with my car loaded up, to his new cottage and old flat, planning to get an auto locksmith to come and sort the car out, the following MOnday. (This was saturday). As he picked up the very last box in the flat to put into my car, down fell a spare key. Yippee. Move was completed, he drove his motorbike to his new place (illegal as it had no MOT). Then I gets another call this Monday gone. His car is kaput. So, I get home, go online, buy breakdown insurance for him. He calls them out next day and it seems the diesel pump is broke. Him panicking now as he lives 25 miles from work, he works odd shifts, there is no public transport. On top of which, he has no money as he lost his chequebook, phoned the bank to get it cancelled, told them not to stop the debit card and to send new cheque book to his new address. Guess what? They stopped his debit card and sent the new one to his old address <bangs head on wall>.
So him panicking as he cannot get to work, more panicking as he has no money even to try to get a train or bus in even if he gets there late. I drive over, (after driving 50 miles to get them a cooker off freecycle) and phone a couple of scrappies to get a spare diesel pump. Nobody has one I then drive back towards my home as I know of a scrappie who usually has bits for citroens. He does, but not the right one. I moan and say that all the way over I was looking out to see if anyone had a little cheap car for sale on the side of the road and typically, that day, nobody had. The scrappie mentions that he has one, little old dented renault clio with a teeny 1200 petrol engine. I drive all the way back to son (22 miles) fetch him over, test drive the clio and go over overdrawn to buy it for £195.
So, son bid and won on ebay a big american style fridge down near Colchester. No trouble picking it up in his old car. Remember, the one which now doesn't work? So I says I will go and get it in my big car. Remember the motorbike with no MOT? Well it just needs a new exhaust. Only they cost around £700 new and nobody has a 2nd hand one anywhere. Some on ebay but still costing £300+. So son then emails me to tell me he has just won on ebay, a bargain. another yamaha virago, just like his, in bits as spares or rebuild.Only £135. Great!!!.............................It.s down on the Sussex coast, some 180 miles away. Son say he will go and collect in his little clio. I say "don't be so bloody daft". The frame won't fit in the clio, I'm not happy about him thrashing that tiny engine down the motorway and the car is too new and I'm not 100% it could cope with sch a journey so........................................I have offered to drive down to Sussex with my trailer, collect the basket case bike, then back up to colchester, to collect the large American style fridge, then to his, near Ely, then home to mine. And I'm not looking forward to it one tiny little bit! I will be away from my home for at least 10 hours if not more and be driving for most of that time but what can I do? There is no way he can possibly get either of them. One thing's for sure, I shall spend several days at home after the trip. I hate leaving my home, I like to be here, I hate leaving my animals and I hate driving for hours. It's one of the reasons I won't go to poultry shows which are too far away and can never enter birds into the National.
So I ent really looking forward to it at all.

[Annpan]

Hate to break this to you Fenwoman (but your the one who likes honesty ) You are a bit of a soft touch.

If I had anything like those problems and phoned my mum here is the answer she would give..."So What!" or possibly "Tough luck"
Exactly the comment I got when I asked for help with my newborn baby, and while I was suffering from anaphalaxis. Also exactly the response I got when my brother buggered off the week before he was due to buy my house off of me (we just needed a contact phone number, to find him)

I learned at a young age not to get myself into trouble and if I did, it was me who had to pick up the pieces.

OK given, I got a particullarly hard time but guess why so many young adults can't (or choose not to) stand on their own two feet.

[Eigon]

I hope he's giving you something towards the petrol!

[Annpan]

I hope he's giving you an all expences paid weekend away in some luxurious pampering hotel or something of a similar ilk... since I know you would rather not leave home... but you get my point

[Thomzo]

I'm sure you will cope with it. You seem quite strong. Plan to stop every couple of hours. It will add to your day but you will struggle to do all that driving unless you have regular breaks. Also, take some sandwiches and soft drinks with you so that you have some healthy food for the journey and don't have to rely on motorway services or petrol station junk food.

Good luck
Zoe

[fenwoman]

Hate to break this to you Fenwoman (but your the one who likes honesty ) You are a bit of a soft touch.

Am not. Don't you go saying things like that or you will ruin my reputation.

If I had anything like those problems and phoned my mum here is the answer she would give..."So What!" or possibly "Tough luck"
Exactly the comment I got when I asked for help with my newborn baby, and while I was suffering from anaphalaxis. Also exactly the response I got when my brother buggered off the week before he was due to buy my house off of me (we just needed a contact phone number, to find him)

I learned at a young age not to get myself into trouble and if I did, it was me who had to pick up the pieces.

OK given, I got a particullarly hard time but guess why so many young adults can't (or choose not to) stand on their own two feet.

He is very independant indeed but if things are stacked against him who else should he call but his mother. It's what mothers are for after all. He is fully prepared to trash his little scrapheap motor all the way down to Sussex to get the basket case, but wht if it proves too much for the little thing? Then he will be back to square one with no way of getting to work, if he can't get to work he loses his job, if he loses his job he loses his home and if that all happens, wil I be able to sit and not worry about it? You bet I won't, so in the long run it's easier if I help, for my own peace of mind.
I'm afraid I simply cannot understand how your mother has the cheek to name herself thus after refusing to help when you were ill with a newborn baby. I'm sorry but IMO she should hang her head in shame.
Had you been my daughter, you would not have even had to ask for help, it would have been offered and one call would have made me drop everything and take over as long as you needed. That comes with the job description. If you don't like the job description, don't take the job.
Independance is good but to be left alone to manage when a helping hand could ease things is not good at all. When your child is adult and if she too had a newborn and was ill, and she asked for your help, would you reply as your mother did because being made to manage on your own is character building?
Desperation is a terrible thing and people have taken their lives because of it.
If my son asks for help I know it is because he has tried everything else and I wouldn't dream of telling him "no" and I'm afraid I simply cannot comprehend of any mother doing that.
It works both ways. If I desperately needed him, he would come to my aid too because he knows that I wouldn't even ask unless it was a matter of great urgency and I had no other option.

[fenwoman]

I hope he's giving you an all expences paid weekend away in some luxurious pampering hotel or something of a similar ilk... since I know you would rather not leave home... but you get my point

There is never an IOU for love. I know he will appreciate it and that's enough.

[fenwoman]

I'm sure you will cope with it. You seem quite strong. Plan to stop every couple of hours. It will add to your day but you will struggle to do all that driving unless you have regular breaks. Also, take some sandwiches and soft drinks with you so that you have some healthy food for the journey and don't have to rely on motorway services or petrol station junk food.

Good luck
Zoe

I am planning to perhaps set off in the early hours of the morning and hopefully miss traffic. I should make good time then as I don't 'ang about in the car. I'm never organised enough to take sarnies and a flask as I have so many chores to do and animals to organise before I go that I would forget them even if I made them lol. The cats would find the sarnies on the work surface and be happy that mummy left them something other than cat food to while away the long hours between naps
I think I might actually enjoy a junk food meal for a change if I have any money on me. I may go nuts and have a filet o fish and some fries in a muckdonalds on the way back. Their coffee isn't bad either, nice and strong.
Getting going will be horrible as I start to get stressed when I am about to leave but once I get off home turf, I will simply drive until I arrive and 'zone out' while I'm away. Then on the way back, once I start seeing my beloved flat lands start to appear and familiar sounding place names on signs, I will start relaxing again. My son's new place is only 22 miles away and Ely is familiar to me so the stress will start to fall away when I get there.
I am looking at it like it is something unpleasant which has to be done so best get it planned and done and over ASAP. In future I'll tell him to try to bid only on stuff within 75 miles on ebay lol.

[ina]

I think I might actually enjoy a junk food meal for a change if I have any money on me. I may go nuts and have a filet o fish and some fries in a muckdonalds on the way back. Their coffee isn't bad either, nice and strong.

Who knows, you might even enjoy the rest of it... And then you can start a haulage company, you seem to be in training for it.

As long as your son doesn't take this kind of help for granted, I can't see anything wrong with it. He's lucky, though, to have a mother like you.

[baldowrie]

nah it's a very boring journey Ina, having lived just outside Holbeach for 10 years I know!

[fenwoman]

I think I might actually enjoy a junk food meal for a change if I have any money on me. I may go nuts and have a filet o fish and some fries in a muckdonalds on the way back. Their coffee isn't bad either, nice and strong.

Who knows, you might even enjoy the rest of it... And then you can start a haulage company, you seem to be in training for it.

As long as your son doesn't take this kind of help for granted, I can't see anything wrong with it. He's lucky, though, to have a mother like you.

oh no he doesn't take it for granted. He hates asking for help. I have just spoken to him on the phone at work and even though he won't get home from work tonight until nearly midnight, he says I have to pick him up on my way in the morning at 7am as he doesn't want me driving all that way on my own. Nice thought but really, I have been driving up and down the country on my own for the last 20 years, first showing dogs, then when I was a sales rep, now showing chickens and the island isn't that big that I can't find my way home
I like driving on my own as I don't get people gasping, holding the edge of the seat or door handle with white knuckles and keeping their eyes closed the wole time. That is very distracting and makes me nervous and when I get nervous I get tense and when I get tense my foot presses harder on the accellerator pedal <sp>. So I like travelling alone without passengers distracting me

[the.fee.fairy]

that's why parents are so great...

I still have to live with mine because i'm not rich enough to move out...

Parents are great things.

[mrsflibble]

Annpan: your mum sounds like mine
Fenwoman: you'll be fine, you're strong.

[fenwoman]

Yoo hooooooooo I'm back
Did anyone catch a glimspe of me yesterday as they were on the roads? I was the big old filthy red puggie estate driving like a bat out of hell with a tatty looking trailer behind. Then the same on the way back but the trailer full of bits of motorbike and a massive fridge freezer in the car.
I got down to Brighton in only 3 1/3 hours. I would loved to have been a passenger so as to look at the different topography, what the fields had in them, livestock etc. I did catch a liddle glimpse of the sea as I came through a tunnel through a big hill just outside Brighton.( I was very annoyed and being charge a whole bloody £2 just to get the other side of the Thames and told the chap that should he ever come up my way I would want a fiver off him if he needed to get across the Nene and he chuckled.) I did feel happier when, on the way back, there was a sign by the road saying "Welcome to East-Anglia", but that was in Essex and I don't count that as East Anglia seeing as it is just outside London. Only when I got to Lavenham in Suffolk to collect the fridge, did I feel was was back on my home ground as it's not far from Bury St Edmunds and I used to live near there. After dropping stuff of at son's place I got home again at around 7pm after a good 12 hours on the road. Glad it's done.

[johnM]

... driving like a bat out of hell ....

I trust this was a bat within the legal speed limit out of hell.

£2 isn't that much for a bridge toll, is it?