Busy day

Just after nine, Emer and I collected Linnea and her friend from his house, and we all four marched smartly to the train station. We got a train to the town centre, visited the toilets, and then walked to the river to find the cinema. (Disability fail number one: the escalator was out of order and there were no staff on the ground floor to operate the key-access-only lift; summoning staff from elsewhere with bells and buzzers wasn't as effective as getting someone going up the stairs to ask someone to come down. However, the person who came down was great).

At the cinema, I went to get water - and discovered that it was cheaper to buy the special kids' snack deal than just water, so we each got popcorn and a bottle of water and a little chocolate bar. Then the same guy who operated the lift showed us to our seats, which is an unusual extra service for which I was very grateful.

We were going to see The Princess and the Frog. First off, it was too loud for Linnea - her ears aren't used to that kind of volume at all, and she spent a long time with her fingers in her ears or her hands over them. Secondly, she was ok with the two deaths in it, but the bad magic really, really, really, REALLY, really bothered her - she screamed at least once and asked to go home several times, but I held her on my lap (suboptimal for my dodgy hips, but there you go) and she was, in the end, glad to have seen the film, and she enjoyed the happy ending with the good magic and the dead firefly turning into a star.

Afterwards (Disability fail number two: The emergency help cord in the disabled loo was tied up out of reach so that no-one could pull it) we went outside and I sat on a bench to allow my hips to recover a bit, and then we got a train. Throughout, all the children were models of good behaviour and cooperative safety-minded obedience.

Which was just as well, because when we were getting off the train the two older ones hopped off ahead of me, and I was standing in the doorway with my crutches on the platform to make sure Emer got off ok as the doors closed, and just as she got past me the doors closed on my hips.
( The details of my train falling off adventure )

Rob came and helped me up the steps and across the bridge, and then into the trike, and sitting in the trike was great. It's a low seat designed for child-height people, so it put no strain whatsoever on my hips in any way and made me feel much much better very quickly. We picked up Linnea's friend's father and little sister en route and then my friend and her two children, so arrived at the house six children and four adults, so I just sat on the garden bench in the sun (perfect height, no hip strain) while people brought me tea and painkillers and settled the children and set up the garden chairs and parasol, and Rob went back to work, and then we just vegged and drank tea and those of us who were hungry ate and those who weren't, didn't.

And then they all went away and Rob came home again and our dinner guests arrived and Rob finished cooking and we had a lovely dinner.

Dairy-free vegetarian lasagne, salad, dairy- and soy-free icecream, mixed berries in clafouti, and oat cream. It was lovely. And because we had someone to share it with, we opened a bottle of cider we'd been given a while ago.

Then they went home too, and I went to bed and had a nap, and Rob put the girls to bed, and I bet that right now he's asleep on Emer's bed, fully clothed, with her arms locked around his neck like a vice.

I must go on my blistered foot (oh, yes, I need new shoes) and wake him up. Poor Rob.