Originally Posted by Sallyforth:
“Michelle seemed more like the girl I remember from Destiny's Child on ITT last night. I'm not saying she's glad Brendan's away but maybe a combination of relief at scraping through last week and having a fresh perspective from Ian for a while has brought out her more positive side.”
I think Michelle and Brendan get on well but that because he gets so wound up about the scores and the judges' comments, he ends up winding her up more as well, which only goes to make her tense and nervous.
It may also be that Brendan might have been waiting for the news of his father, given how ill he was. That could also have made things harder for them.
My dad died of cancer over 20 years ago. My brother got engaged in November, married mid-February (the wedding was advanced because of my dad's condition and, fortunately, he was able to be there and to enjoy it) and my dad died mid-April. I was still living in the UK at the time (the only one of the kids who was) as were my parents. My sister and brother-in-law took a sabbatical and stayed in the UK from my brother's wedding until a few weeks after my father's passing. My brother and sister-in-law came to the UK for their engagement, again for their wedding and my brother knew he would be coming back when my father passed away but we didn't know when to tell him to come. When dad went into hospital for the last time, the doctor warned us this was the end but couldn't tell us how much time dad had left - it could have been days or it could have been a few weeks and there was no way of telling. It made it very hard for us to know when to tell my brother to come over: if we told him too early and he ended up staying in the UK for weeks, he would have lost his job.
Brendan could have been in a similar situation, ie, that he knew it was near the end but he couldn't know exactly how long his father had left and so didn't know when to go back to New Zealand. If he was waiting for the news, as happened with my brother, that wouldn't have helped Michelle. It would be very hard to work with a partner who, every time the phone rings, is understandably worried that it's the news their father has passed away. If those were the circumstances, Michelle could be finding it a bit of light-hearted relief working with Ian this week.
Without it I could never have met Ian and done this:
Thanks for posting.
anyone got a tissue ?