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Oh my God. Even though yesterday didn’t run entirely smoothly, the stress levels this morning and slowly waking up (for me still stupidly early but never mind) with nothing to do created an amazing feeling of well-being. We had breakfast brought up to our room and then Catie went for a massage and for just a few hours I was able to enjoy the guilt-free doing nothing that I once took for granted.
We were happy again.
Why can’t every day be like this?
Oh yeah, I forgot. For one beautiful second I forgot.
We stretched the good will of Catie’s parents (who are looking after the kids) as far as it could go and went out to do some shopping. We parked up behind Oxford Street in a space where you can charge your electric car. We had enough charge to get home, but we thought we might as well find out how to do this and I suspected that it might be cheaper than paying for parking anyway (I have a feeling parking is free for electric cars in central London anyway, but didn’t want to take the chance and in any case couldn’t find an empty space). It took me about 10 minutes to work out how to sign up and work out which type of charge I required, but we did it. It meant we were able to park for something like 8p per minute, but we had an almost full tank of electricity when we returned and had only spent £12 (though I felt it might be less than that).
There was no congestion charge as it was the weekend, but it’s also free for electric vehicles (provided you register) and this weekend’s trip made driving into London for an afternoon feel like an easy possibility (though I think I might have some bus lane fines to contend with - I clipped the edge of one when I was right behind a bus yesterday and twice went into a really tiny one as I tried to navigate closed roads around Haymarket). It somehow feels wrong to be driving through the streets of central London, like you’ve ventured on to a film set, but even at the weekend when it’s free to enter the Thunderdome (as I call the congestion charge zone) traffic was light.
We discussed whether we missed living in London. My wife said she did in some ways (though she seemed pretty annoyed by the number of pedestrians) but I don’t really. In fact coming in for a day out makes me appreciate the good things in a way I never did before, but also thank God that I can escape. In my magic car that doesn’t need petrol.
Soon enough though we had to go back to the awful countryside-based parental reality. I think in truth the reason the weekend was so pleasant was that we both left our work behind and it’s been a long, long time since one or both of us hasn’t been up against it. And I suppose it was a reminder that we are people, not just parents. I love being a parent. But I also love this wonderful woman who I first walked through the streets of London with eleven years ago, feeling magic in the air and like the city had been built for us (just checked wikipedia and this is not why it was built). So it was nice to walk through the city again with her this weekend and forget about everything else. How lucky I was to meet her. How much luckier to somehow convince her to throw her lot in with mine.
Though we spent an inordinate amount of time looking for a little gift for the kids, failing to find anything, then finding something, but being unable to pay for it at two different tills cos of some scanning issue, then giving up and stopping off at Tesco on the way home and just getting them some Milky Bar buttons.Which Ernie was pleased about, but even Phoebe said "Where's my real present?"
It's in fucking John Lewis cos we couldn't be bothered to spend another ten minutes queuing. Now eat your chocolate and shut up.
I’ve made some strong progress with the RHLSTP series 15 bookings
February 4th EMILY ATACK + TBC
February 11th ROB BRYDON and DAVID MORRISSEY
February 18th JAMES ACASTER and LONDON HUGHES
March 4th MATT FORDE +TBC
And one of the guests at the Bath Komedia on 15th February will be the very funny Kerry Howard. And I'll be finding out why no one has asked her to do a TV show where she travels the world with her dad.
Book here.
