Linda*, 45, Perth, WA.
Gripping my daughter Lily’s hand and Alba the dog’s lead, I knocked on the door with my spare hand.
Then I bent down and looked my labradoodle in the eyes.
“Alba, you need to behave yourself today,” I said.
Lily, three, bent down and copied me.
“Yes, be good girl, Alba,” she said, wagging her finger authoritatively at the poor pooch.
The three of us had come to visit my motherin-law, Mary.
My husband, Grant, was 12 years older than me and his mother, Mary, was in her 70s.
She had been widowed before Grant and I had got together and was extremely curmudgeonly.
Some 70-year-olds are sprightly and joyful, but not Mary.
Her age was her excuse to be grumpy and stuck in her ways…
