Sowing and reaping

This Friday Charlie and I and three Mums from our NCT class went to the National Army Museum. Apart from the big guns out front for climbing on I couldn’t actually tell you what’s in there as we just made a beeline for the free play area and dug in for the morning.

After we'd stuffed our little wonders full of lunch however the move was on to go to Battersea Park, which is on the other side of the river. Personally, I was gunning to take the spud home for a nap but my rubber arm was twisted in the way that in a past life would end up with me getting very drunk and losing a shoe but these days means I end up walking until my son is rigid with the need to run and then touring public loos while he has a series of ever looser movements in his trousers.

I'm sure at one point I must have planned this change in my life but some days I am buggered to know why.

By the time I had cleaned him up with the last of my wipes and stuffed him into the last of his clean trousers I was desperate to go home however it turned out I was not only miles from the nearest tube station but also miles from the nearest bus home.

Despite being only a 20-minute drive it took me an hour and a half to get home. I walked most of the way, some of it in tears, all of it swearing and most of it, thankfully, with my little boy snoozing angelically in his stroller.

I relate this story primarily as an example of karmic come-uppance. The day before I had been talking to one of the Mums in our street who had a new stroller. Turns out she had binned the last one after a very long day in which, she had travelled to two separate towns outside of London and had a final obligation in Camden. She walked miles to the Victoria line only to find it was closed and then had to walk miles back, pushing her ever-tetchier toddler around and carrying heavy bags. She finally got to the nearest station to home only to have the front wheel of her pram snap off in the street. As she lifted her son out she discovered he had pooed all up his back and she had no clean clothes. Luckily she found an understanding taxi driver. I was naturally appalled at this story however not enough to stop myself thinking about what wonderful blog material it would make. I am certain therefore that whichever mischievous Godlet it is who watches over those of us here in the Great Land of Blog had heard me and granted my wish at the earliest opportunity.

Consider me penitent.