What's happening in your life? Part 2

I was talking to one of my mothers cousins a couple of weeks ago.

She was discussing her off up somewhere to babysit for her daughters toddler, while the daughter and her happily married husband take a weekend off in a cottage. It all seemed very easy. I bet that couple are working on a private pension.

These are my grandmothers relatives. They're all very nice. My mothers problem, and mine, is that she considers her fathers family to be her family - among them, she's the poor relation, the black sheep sibling, the one who causes disgrace.

I've also always considered myself more attached to my maternal grandfathers family. They are who I really think of as cousins, they're the ones I keep up with. My own fathers family treated me as if I was a spare part, an optional extra, someone to exclude and subject to their inverted snobbery.

It seems like a missing jigsaw piece that there was this branch of completely normal people living their lives in a way people on television do, while I was stuck between two larger than life families - and never fully belonging to either.

Nobody knows how corrosive it is to feel like you don't belong, unless they're there too. I must say that in defence of my maternal grandfathers relations, it's never been deliberate - it's just a fact that I don't have their resources and choices.

With my own fathers family, they've spent the last 38 years making sure I know I'm on my own, not one of theirs. Basically, how their son supposedly felt. They're never done with punishing me for my existence - my nan once said to me, when I rang her from Greece during an especially terrible time, 'I'm sorry to 'ere that darlin, but I'm actually watching Coronation Street, and it's a big week this week'. I said, 'I'm sorry to have bothered you, enjoy your evening'.

Those people even do it through my son. 'I got a message from X' he'll say. Oh, that's nice, the last time I saw him was eyeball to eyeball while he described to me precisely how I should commit suicide. He'll announce things like 'Auntie Y asked if I wanted to go to Borough Market for her birthday', and I'm left to say, you know Auntie Y isn't anyone's aunt, she's an evil old b*st*rd who just happens to live across the road from them.

'Old nan' seems to have become a thing my paternal cousins have filtered through to him. 'Old nan says hi'. Old nan would have the steam off your p*ss and the trace minerals out of your spit. That doesn't go down well with a teenager, and I don't want to go too heavily in case he actually rebels by heading off to meet the f*ckers.

I was thinking about 'old nan'. It has been said that we are rather similar - by her children including my father, by my grandad, my half sister, by my mother, by people who see her picture framed in my flat and ask me who it is. In some ways I'm quite flattered - contrary to what she thinks, I've never looked down my nose at her. I've always found her almost intimidatingly glamorous, and the sheer brazenness of her is something I'd love to have to that degree.

Of all my relatives, she's the one I dream about the most. I'm not as hard as she is. Our relationship is what the term 'too much water under the bridge' was made for. It's a shame. As she ages, I find the harder side of me thinking 'don't you dare outlive my lovely grandmother, you don't deserve to - die at 92 if you must, but I'd rather kill you myself than let you dare get to 93'. That's not very nice, but as a trait it's very her. She's the most vicious person I've ever met.

I like to think there are differences - I wouldn't want to be thought of as that destructive. I wouldn't require a full 10% of my children's earnings to be handed over to me every year. I'm happy to visit people rather than expect them to pay homage to me. I don't have a mirrored ceiling in my bedroom. Some similarities too - if I had London Tonight on the doorstep, I would dress up, and I would make sure it was being recorded. Her make up is superb.

I've never invested in a private pension - has anywhere here done so?

I have a small DC pension as a result of a 'matching' thing our employers ran for a couple of years, as a sideline to the main scheme. If you put 1% of your salary into this side thing, they'd put another 1% free.

Then they decided not to carry on, so I've got 3 grand trapped in there that I can't get at for another 4 years. I have soundly invested it in a sustainable way, in the BMO Responsible Global Equity fund.

One of my pensions made 25% last year...
£2000 up to £2500
That will give me £5 a month when I am 65
I am going to be poor...
Just waiting for the Gov to go back on their "Triple Lock" promise.

My dad's cousin has died. When I offered my condolences I learnt that I have loads of second cousins in the Liverpool and Cheshire areas who I've never met and who I had not previously suspected the existence of.

Apparently my parents have been having reunions and regular annual meet-ups with them and everything.

Coming back from Zarnichester this afternoon I saw no fewer than five ambulances going the other way.

My son is late in coming home. I'm waiting to speak to him. When I hear him coming up the stairs, I'll turn the lamps off and sit in a chair in the dark for the full effect...

Earlier, two Jehovah's Witnesses turned up here to ask where I was, whether I needed help, and how disappointed they were that I hadn't come to this afternoons programme of activities. What? Apparently, I'd accepted their invite a couple of weeks ago. That sounds like the kind of thing that little backside torpedo would do to me for a laugh, and he's the only other person here. They were excited by my keen response - I'd agreed to come to their production of 'The Temptation of Daniel', followed by a discussion group. A packed programme is arranged for the rest of this week.

You should see the flyer they handed over when I asked what the hell they were talking about. It's three African people smiling on the side of a mountain. It looks a bit North Korean. If I can work out how to, I'll post a picture of it.

It's hard work being a Jehovah's Witness. To be a member in good standing you have to spend 10 hours a week witnessing.

It's even harder to go out with an ex one. I tried, and they'd really done a number on him. At certain points I was fielding 10-15 texts every 10-15 minutes, plus several calls every hour or so.

Jehovah's Witnesses do dress smartly though. They're second only to Mormons, whose men also appear to always be born attractive.

Witnesses, Christadelphians etc are always well-dressed and often have expensive cars - apparently because there are so many other things they can't spend money on because they're sinful.

Just randomly found out there was a four-ambulance, two-fire-engine 'incident' right where I used to live, on Tuesday night.

I knew moving out was the right thing to do.

The police were there as well apparently.