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An enjoyable solo parenting morning and early afternoon, with the kids behaving pretty well, but I was very pleased to see Catie return from her hen weekend (hopefully not actually hers, though she's given me a good deal of her life and I can't blame her if she wants to give it a go with someone else). We'd been into town as the kids wanted to go shopping - only once we were nearly there did Ernie suggest that today might be a good day to go swimming. It was blisteringly hot and swimming might have been a better idea, though not sure I could have coped with both kids on my own, at least without one of them drowning. We bought some party hats for my birthday and some sandwiches and cake for a little picnic beside the slightly fetid water beside Hitchin church. The grass was littered with cigarette butts and Ernie was obsessed with chasing the pigeons, but it was still somehow a little idyll. I offered to buy them both a book from Waterstones and we saw a couple of Catie's books in the kids section. Phoebe suggested we place them so the covers were facing outwards. These kids learn fast.
I needed a wee so we stopped for a coffee in the vegan cafe. I ordered a cappuccino with oat milk,because that's who I am now and they said they'd bring it to my table, but ten minutes passed and the kids were starting to misbehave and it still hadn't shown up. Finally I asked the waitress if it was coming and then the coffee arrived pretty quickly. They weren't all that busy, but most of the staff looked like they were students and maybe they were struggling to keep things going. I had a couple of sips and then the waitress returned to say that they'd accidentally made a coffee with nut milk. I wasn't going to wait another ten minutes and I hadn't really noticed and the coffee was OK so I said not to worry. But thought about what might have happened if, like my niece, I was allergic to nuts. That could have been a fatal slip up and I guess this is how these things happen - a couple of little errors with deadly consequences which would have rebounded through the lives of those slightly inefficient students.
But in this Universe it was of no consequence and I lived on. Though I felt a bit triggered that they'd given nut milk to a man with one nut. If it was actually “nut†milk that might explain why it took ten minutes. Tasty though, so I'm cool.
It's such a pleasure to be at the point where a solo parenting trip out isn't a complete nightmare filled with fear that one of them will run into the road (still not 100% certain with Ernie). I spoiled the kids a bit and am certainly the more relaxed parent when it comes to iPad time and watching TV (never did me any harm- except for making me turn out the way that I am) but we did loads of cool stuff too. I wish I had planned a bit more, but it was also fun just to do whatever we fancied. And we got home in time to play with the sprinkler in the sunshine (or Catie and the kids did, I went to bed and watched the tennis- but I have done more than my fair share on the Parental Chess Clock app this week).
Early to bed for Catie. I stayed up and watched TV and then woke up in the middle of the night having had a dream that questioned whether the team that worked with the Six Million Dollar Man actually helped him at all, or did more harm than good. I was so spooked by this dream that I couldn't get back to sleep for two hours, though the oppressive heat might have had something to do with it. I came down to our always cool lounge and then gradually calmed down and fell asleep on the sofa.
