April 5: Happy Easter

Family lunch at sisters in Bath. My mum has heard that Father-to-be came to dinner the other night. I hadn't deliberately kept it from her. As always, I just hadn't seen her. When we are alone, I apologise that I hadn't told her. Immediately, there are tears in her eyes, in her voice. 'I just feel so excluded. You don't tell me anything. I have no idea what's going on.'
Get a sense too that the middle sister is off with me. There's no doubt what she thinks of FTB. She hates him - though she's never met him. Thinks he is awful. Not just for how he has treated me. But largely for how awful he has been about Bump. And still is being. I think she thinks my policy of inclusion - which I would never have come to of my own volition, without Big C's advice - is bonkers and something which he doesn't deserve.
It's a lovely day. I play football with my big bouncy nephews in the garden until the dog arrives, and swiftly pops the ball with his sharp teeth. But I can't avoid the vibes. It's so upsetting. A mum and a sister who disapprove, or judge, or are suddenly wary. Suppose it was easier when we were all in hate-FTB mode. Safety in numbers. An alliance. Something to unite against. Be a force to be reckoned with. It's just awful to feel that they think badly of me; that I'm handling things wrong, that I'm making a mess of it, that I am somehow deliberately excluding them. It's so bad I really just want to leave our family gathering and come home on my own. But I don't.
After lunch, we take a walk along the Bradford Avon canal. It's delightful, full of parked barges with fires going, people out on the bank painting shelves, tinkering. Countless bikes wheel past, many with trailers on the back. One has a too-old-to-walk Alsatian in. One has hunks of wood. I think, 'When Bump is a baby, before he can sit up and have his own bike seat, can I just get a trailer with good suspension, fill it full of blankets, get a rain cover, lie him in it and cycle him around - obviously far away from cars?' I think if I do this, I will be locked up for cruelty. But perhaps, just one day, I'll go to a quiet park and try it. I'm sure it would be a success.