You'd think I'd know better

Than to let my brother house sit.

Spent a few days having a relaxing little holiday type thing (actually more an escapism than anything else as we went to be AWAY rather than go to somewhere) and I'm feeling much more charged. Soemtimes you need to get out from the same 4 walls and away from the same people you see everyday


But letting my brother house-sit. See, brother has a talent. He was a born viking. If he were raiding and pillaging a village he'd be in, out and fully loaded in an hour and have more loot than any of his fellows who spend all day about it. He can visit you briefly on his way to work and your cupboards look like you've just been raided by Huns. HUNGRY Huns. The Mongols left more in their wake.

So we're living on take away for the next few days until we can be bothered to shop.

AND he destroyed the interior my car - damn it, how does our family produce me of a reasonable, sensible height and him, the lurching monster? Dwarfs and jolly green giants shouldn't share the same gene pool. AND he's killed my plant - it's a CACTUS how can anyone not see that it's a cactus? It doesn't need daily watering, that's the whole POINT of a cactus - it's a plant you can just leave in a corner and not faff with.

*grumbles some more*

And to family

No I didn't answer the phone while I was away. Why? Because the whole POINT of this little break was to have some ALONE time. It was, to be extremely blunt about it, to GET AWAY FROM YOU.

Not because I hate, dislike or otherwise think negatively about you (well, not much) but because, like just about everyone in my mother's branch of the family, I have an extreme anti-social/hermit streak and your CONSTANT desire to be THERE in my life is raising my stress levels ridiculously. I need to pull a Greta Garbo now and then for the sake of sanity. Don't get offended, don't get upset, don't dump drama on me - it's not about you, it's about what I need.

Yes, beloved came with me because a) he doesn't count and b) he is one of the best people I have ever known when it comes to respecting my space and realising that sometimes I need to be alone. Even better, he doesn't get mortally offended when i want to be alone - because he realises this is about my need for solitude not about my not liking him