Ah, the first days of Spring. And a Bank Holiday to boot. Who’d have thought it? What a coincidence.
We had a Family Day Out. To a sweet local town. Where the tourists flock in the sunshine. Thankfully today it rained. Not all day mind, just until lunchtime, by which time, we’d made the place our own.
Now going out is always a little tricky because of little S’s afternoon sleep. She always has a couple of hours right after lunch. It sears through the day like the magician’s guillotine through his hapless assistant. Of course it’s fine at home – gives us some space to potter in peace. Not so great when out. It’s not that I object to relaxing in some quiet place for a couple of hours. Perhaps with a beer. And a newspaper. The problem is finding somewhere S will sleep.
She will sleep in the car. If it’s moving. Otherwise it’s a quiet room or nothing. Today we had nothing. Still, although she’d been as good as gold for way past her normal nap time we know that a tired toddler tends to tantrum terribly towards teatime if she hasn’t had her forty winks.
She was tired. She was nodding. She’d actually dropped off in her pram until a juggler on a unicycle started to warm up a crowd. It was warm and sunny. So we found a quiet spot in the park.
We laid out our picnic blanket. We laid her down. We laid down. The psychology of the herd, you see. She closed her eyes. A game of football started beside us.
I know that we live in a world suffocated by obesity, where fat threatens to swamp us and evolution promises to redesign our hands to hold games controllers more efficiently but really, did these boys really need to start playing soccer right next to us?
At first it was just a couple of them. Then more joined. I felt my blood begin to boil. How selfish, I thought to myself. How irresponsible. Couldn’t they see our baby trying to sleep? I glared. I tried to shield my little girl from the noise and the inevitable near miss. It felt like dozens of boys were running around us now. We laid resolutely on our blanket. Like silly Cnuts trying hold back the sea.
S started to cry. Enough. Enough already. I stood up to give these idiots a piece of my mind. It was then I saw the goal posts. And the spectators at the edge of the pitch. And the Ref having an intense conversation with a group of concerned parents.
We took S home to bed.
Comments