I spent Christmas and New Year up in Aberdeen. At first I thought it was a great idea, getting to open presents with El, going to parties etc. I didn’t realise I was neglecting mum and Cat. The more people I told about my Christmas plans up north, the more people were surprised and asked why I wasn’t spending time with family. I started to feel a bit guilty, but couldn’t really do anything about it since the tickets were bough and plans were made. At the back of my mind I had always though ‘El would do this for me as well – either way, one of us would have to take the slack for doing so. Next year it’ll be better.’

Between Christmas and New Year, mum’s face went all red and blotchy. The medical term was Impetigo if I remember correctly. She suffered a lot from the pain but still had to work. I went up to Aberdeen on New Year Eve because El was getting baptised on Sunday 2nd Jan 2005.

I came home on 3rd January 2005 as usual and thought everything was alright for the new few days. It wasn’t until I arranged to go up to Aberdeen on the following weekend (15th-16th Jan) and showed mum the reservation, that I realised how hurt my mum had been.

Not only was she angry that I am going up AGAIN but I’m going up even though she is still unwell and she had a week of annual leave off work that week and would have been nice if I had stayed at home. I felt so bad about this and cancelled my plans and apologised to mum, reassuring her that it was not intentional to book on those dates. Mum cried on the phone to people, also said I treated the house like a hotel – come and go as I please and make no contributions etc. Actually Cat blogged about mum’s unhappiness to start with. I saw it whilst at work and then all this happened.

Anyway, I thank the Lord for all that has happened. I have since then become more aware of my actions and behaviour towards my family and make more effort to put things back to the way they were: the love, laughter, jokes and family time.

Praise God for this =)