It's been a hard day's night

[ailbhe]

Here I am, in Coffee Republic, using a PC so crippled that I can't tab between fields or view my gmail - I can log in ok, it authenticates, but nothing on the apage shows up. And because of cookies, I can't log out again to see if gmail's website says anything useful about it without being able to view the page.

Linnea and I had a grand time hanging up the laundry and then at 11:30 we left the house. By noon we were at the bus-stop 2 minutes' walk from the house. (This keyboard is so crippled I am not going to correct any further typos because backspacing is hard labour and trust me if anyone knows abou thard labour it's me yesno? yes good glad we sorted that out).

Linnea, drling heart that she is, refused to cross the road. So I made her, So she made me cross it back. So I did. Then she refused to walk. Or be carried. Or go in the buggy. Then she agreed to walk but refused to walk towarsd town. Then she agreed to walk towards the shop. Then she sat down outside the delightful Elle's Baguettes and refused to move until we went in. So we went in. Then she climbed a stool - they have very chic barstools about three times as high as the child, over a hard concrete floor with tiles on - and startnig saying "Num num, num num."

It was over 20 minutes since we'd left the house. I started to cry, with my back to the counter, so that no-one could see, and when they weren't busy, I bought her a banana and I fed it to her and stuffed her into the buggy to eat it. Adn they gave me busfare in my change because after all that there's no way I was walking all the way to town pushing.

I called Rob fmro the bus-stop to whinge and when I reached the point of telling him "But I'm not gonig to kill anyone," the woman beside me in the queue said "That's good," and moved away. The first bus was full. Luckily, because of the nature of queues, no-one noticed me burst into tears at this. I got on the second bus bnext to a man with elderly-man-BO so bad I was transported back to a time when Pat Phaidi was not yet dead and still hooking me around the ankles with his scary walking stick, which hurt but was hilarious. So I cried again.

Then I sat Linnea down in her buggy by a bench in the street and fed her lunch. And I ate some. The chicken and cucumber sandwiches were lovely, Rob, thank you. Then loads of people came and smoked at us so we left and I went into Pumpkin Patch and bought a pair of stripy socks for Linnea. That felt so good that I went to H&M and bought her some tights and mittens and myself a long-sleeved tshirt. Afford? What is this concept "afford"? I can't afford "afford" or I'd have to spend all my time doped up to *here* and drunk to boot.

Then I went to the loo and tried to feed Linnea and couldn't, and then I went to Waterstones cafe adn tried to ahve a cup of tea and feed Linne abut had to chase her around so much instead that I left my tea undrunk. Then I sat on a bench and cried some more. Then I went to Mothercare and took her in to change her nappy and have a feed in their rocking chairs and she -

We were already in there, and a woman came in and held the door open for her toddler, because the door is on a heavy slam-inducing spring and besides, it's a very evyr heavy door. The new toddler just stood in the doorway and Linnea went over to talk to her. The mother had her buggy across the passage between me and Linnea, but that was ok because she was easily close enough to grab either toddler if anything happened.

Excep tthat suddenly, after looking indulgently at the two toddlers chattnig in the doorway for about 30 seconds, she picked her own child up and the door slammed shut, Linnea still ni the doorway.

She missed it by I don't know how much - I screamed "Linnea" and she ran away from me, thank god, into the main part of the shop, and the door slammed behind her. Even her trailing arm managed not to get caught.

The other mother - whom I will now characterise as stupid-looking with a bad hairstyle and nasty clothes and a particularly ugly baby - laughed at me.

I dodged around her buggy and heaved open the door (it generally takes me both hands but I managed it with one today due to adrenalin(e)) and grabbed Linnea and sat on the floor of the shop and - you guessed it - cried some more.

Two members of staff were very concerned and nice about it.

And I changed Linnea's nappy and her trousers and I fed her in the rocking chair and she went to sleep and I put her in the buggy and we came here and that was 20 minutes ago because my internet time is about to run out.

Comments

[ruthi.livejournal.com]

You have not killed anyone today! Considering how the day went, that is impressive, and it is something to be proud of.