over and over

Yesterday was good because no pensioners shouted at me, even though I had to go to the post office.

Yesterday was good because the lady behind the counter told me one man actually apologised and said he was sorry for the day before. Which was nice.

Yesterday was good because I went shopping with my friend, and we went to lots of places but I didn’t go too bonkers money wise, although I can’t say I came home empty handed because that would be proper lunacy and people would start to think I had been snatched by aliens or something.

Yesterday was good because by the time I had finished all the chores with the children last night we were stuck in rush hour traffic for so long I lost the will to live and took us all out for dinner at our favourite Indian restaurant, which was like a flash mob style treat, both surprising and rather brilliant for all of us. The relief of not having to think about what I would cook when we got home was so palpable it actually made me a bit teary.

There were things about yesterday that were not good, some of which I cannot talk about because it’s not my stuff to talk about, despite the fact it affects me, and is causing me to be hugely, horribly stressed out, and to run about in my head shouting ‘this way? That way? Which way now? Panic! Panic! Panic! Ahhh. Collapse’. Permanently on repeat.

This might explain why I am so tired it feels like someone has removed my batteries and forgotten to tell me, and why I keep forgetting words like mug, or hair, or apple and standing around going; ‘grrr! Arrgh!’ like that weird monster at the end of the titles on Buffy.

Things I can talk about include it taking one hour twenty minutes to get to school yesterday morning because of a horrific smash between a motorbike and a car at the other end of the road I got run into on Monday. I was three quarters of the way down this road by the time I realised it was blocked off by all the emergency vehicles in Leicestershire. I could not circumnavigate it due to the unfortunate placement of a railway line, so had to turn around and rejoin the traffic going the other way. I was stuck on one road for thirty minutes before I could make a bid for freedom.

On the way home last night, by the time I had gone to the library, and gone to the petrol station, and stopped at the shop to get supplies because Tallulah needs stuff for a packed lunch, we were stuck in traffic on the way home for over an hour and a half – hence the giving up and going out for dinner.

I am really going off traffic.

Today Tallulah is taking part in a celebration of a women’s cycling race which is setting off from Hinckley at some point this morning. To celebrate, the year six children from our school are going to ride from the school, which is in the next town, to Hinckley, join in the celebrations, have a picnic, and cycle back. All in all they will cycle about twelve miles today, on busy roads. This morning they will be cycling in rush hour.

To do this I had to wrestle Tallulah’s bike into the back of my car again yesterday, complete with swearing a blue streak because it doesn’t really fit, and I have to put the seats down, and even then you end up with handlebars in the roof, and children stuffed cheek by jowl in the glove compartment. You do this with a raging sense of resentment because you know you have to undo it at the other end, and then repeat the journey again later on to get the damn thing home again.

We have to be at school at eight o’clock this morning instead of our usual ten to nine, which means getting up even more crack of dawnish. I have already made sandwiches etc. Tallulah is now in the process of finding her bicycle helmet which she tells me is ‘lost’. She did not think to try and find it last night, or indeed any time in the last three weeks when she knew she would be going on a bicycle ride. I am in here, typing this because it is preferable to me killing her before she even has the opportunity to be run over by an insane, rush hour motorist.

I am trying not to worry about today’s expedition. I am trying not to worry despite the fact that the furthest Tallulah has ever cycled before is down to the end of our road and back. I am trying not to worry despite the fact that every time she attempts a hand signal she wobbles about like a jelly on springs. I am trying not to worry about the fact that I have been in one accident this week and seen one horrific accident this week and even though she drives me snooker loopy she is my child and rather fragile and my instincts tell me to sellotape her to a chair and not let her go anywhere.

I have just found the cycle helmet.

This is not because I am Sherlock Holmes. It is because I walked into the space the cycle helmet was supposed to be, turned the light on, and saw the cycle helmet.

Let us not worry about whether she will survive the ride. She is not going to make it through breakfast.