One word? When seven would do…

Otherwise known as Nic’s Big Day Out in The Smoke!

Well it went very well actually, but that would be a very unsufficient description of a whole 8 hours away from home – after all this is my blog you are reading and I’m guessing you expect a bit more than a sentence or two eh?

Caught the 11.08 train, having walked into Lancing leaving children in the tender and loving care of their grandad. For once they were both quite happy to be left and Davies was playing with his Peter Pan island while Tarly was happily installed on Grandad’s lap with a big pile of books beside them ready to read. I realised within about 100 steps that wearing my heeled boots was probably an error but had no time to go back and change so clip-clopped along regardless. It struck me walking through the alleyways (you remember the skanky ones where Tarly fell last week!) that I felt very vulnerable without the children – funny how I use them as a sort of suit of armour. I am so rarely without them that I actually felt almost naked without them. Okay so I also felt a bit carefree and reckless too, but it was odd to walk at grown up pace, have no one to say ‘mind that dog poo’ to and some headspace to think. Which of course I used to dream up weird and wonderful worries about being all alone walking through alleyways and kept looking back over my shoulder to ensure I was not being followed by a shadowy figure in a raincoat.

I am not sure whether being a woman walking alone in broad daylight makes you more or less likely to be attacked than a woman with a small child in a pushchair and another walking alongside her. I would imagine you are slightly more vulnerable alone somehow – for one thing you do not have the opportunity to demonstrate that you are a woman not to be messed with by the way you are talking to and being assertive with your children. Like it or not I am defined to strangers by the way I interact with the kids. Or perhaps the idea of an attack one get two free type deal would appeal more to your average broad daylight alley attack weirdo – who knows?!

Of course having come out the other side of the skanky alleyway intact with bag, clothing and shreads of sanity – not to mention the beginning of a blister from the heeled boots I imediately transfered my paranoia to ‘something happening to me on the train’ type dread. Trains do tend to attract weirdos though don’t they. And launderettes! (thats launderettes also attracting weirdos, not trains attracting launderettes!).

It was one of the nice shiny new trains which always puzzles me – every time I have been to London (yes all four of them in the last few months) we have caught a non-rush hour train up there and it has been hi-tech and shiny new. Every train home again during rush hour has been of the skanky old, fifteen types of urine traces secreted within the lurid blue seat covers variety. Dad believes this is cos they save the newer ones for during the day when they are less likely to get all icky! So I chose a seat, made some notes in my new notebook with my new pen and then got bored of that and settled down to read my book and eavesdrop on the conversation of a couple of blokes sitting a few seats down.

One bloke – quite Pete Waterman-esque in appearance without the northern accent, but wearing a black polo neck under his suit so clearly a creative type was already sitting down when I got on, and another bloke came on at the station after me and they knew each other from years ago. Very funny listening to them as one clearly remembered the others’ name while the other one didn’t, then the Pete Waterman one who was doing most of the talking – loudly and infact inviting me to eavesdrop really got asked what he did for a living in that ‘and you do…..?’ way which suggests you do know and just want to check instead of admitting ‘I would have walked past you if you hadn’t called me over, I can’t remember your name and I’m buggered if I know what you do for a living’ type way. And Pete Waterman bloke was a record producer!! Well that’s what he said anyway but I began to have doubts when I realised he was travelling to London on the train not in a chauffeur driven tinted windowed car, and he wasn’t even in first class! Then shortly after the other bloke got off the train (conversation got all boring after that as they spent the next 20 minutes talking about people they might mutually know and what they were doing now ‘remember Sarah? she’s still there’ ‘really? James left though didn’t he’) his mobile rang and his ringtone was ‘eye of the tiger’. Record producer hah!?

So I read some more of my book and then this very odd chap came and stood beside the door – I assumed, given the trains half empty state that this was because he was getting off at the next stop but after he had been standing there through the next two stops I realised that there was a horrid smell drifting through the carriage which must be coming from him, and snuck a peek at him to do him doing some odd sort of leering facial thing. Clearly either a total weirdo or high on something. Another bloke had sat in the seat infront of me and I started to convince myself that the two of them were in cahoots and making signals to each other. I was now sat in the middle of them, which I was not overly comfortable with and Pete had already gotten off by then. The final straw was bloke sitting infront of me getting some sweets out of his bag and proceeding to eat them very noisily INDEED! I packed up my book and moved!

The next carriage was much busier and I sat infront of a bloke who made three calls on his mobile – one to his wife / boyfriend / other type of life partner, one to arrange a business lunch and another to a mate – the different array of voices and language he used was amazing – clearly he was either an impressionist or living some sort of split personality type existance. I guarantee that if his life partner had overheard him on the phone to his mate she/he/they would not have recognised him as the same person they shared their life with!

Arrived at Victoria and got a cab to Peter Jones, Sloane Square where I was meeting Miranda. The cab driver did not want to talk so I sat looking out of the window feeling very small (an unusual and unfamiliar feeling to me!), very conservative and very unadventurous for never having lived in London and worn dreadlocks and smoked drugs. London always does that to me – I feel quite comfortable and at home in my day to day life but going up there makes me feel old, boring and like a suburbian housewife who has dusted the playdough from her hair, wiped the snot from her jeans and swapped heeled boots for her hush puppies in a sad little attempt to fit it! Miranda rang to say she had already arrived and was waiting when the cab pulled up.

After an awkward double cheek kiss thing – very posh is Miranda – I tend to do either massive full on hugs, or nothing! We walked across the road to a posh place for lunch. The women all wore pashminas and kitten heels (and other clothes too obviously!) and the men all wore stripey shirts and had round glasses and not much hair. I’m sure there are more balding men around now than ever before. Is it the stress of modern life, is it a genetic evolution thing (in 200 years from now all babies will be born bald and stay that way) or is it due to the contraceptive pill in our drinking water diluting mens testosterone levels and making all their masculine lion like manes of hair fall out?

The tables were all very close together which meant every one had to talk loudly to hear each other which meant that in a lull of your own conversation you picked up bits of other peoples (non deliberate eavesdropping in contrast to the very deliberate style I had indulged in on the train!). When the two blokes next to us left they actually asked us what we were meeting to discuss 🙂 I had announced as we sat down that I was feeling naked without the children and then they had obviously heard various other snatched of conversation related to pyjama parties, vibrators and home education!

The food was nice enough but expensive and small portions – which meant the wine was all the more potent of course! Miranda paid for everything and also refunded my train fare so my black cabs both ways totally a tenner was my entire expense of the day 🙂

We thrashed out all of the business stuff over lunch, I was impressed with myself on several levels. I got what I wanted in terms of money, I set the hours to work at a level which she already thinks she will want to up (I do too, but I’d rather be in demand that demanding!) and if I say so myself I really did know what I was talking about when we discussed the business side of things. It has been a long time since I sat with someone talking stuff like that and it is the sort of conversation that has to be face to face. I came up with a couple of inspired ideas which she loved and I felt all glowy and proud that after 8 months not working and fretting about stuff like whether Bob the Builder is gay and why Max and Ruby don’t have parents my brain can be turned to something with potential to make money 🙂

We then went for a walk around some shops – scary places like Petit Bateau and The Little White Company where nighties for Tarly cost 25 quid and a nice little top for her to wear in the garden was £65! Think they will stay in the pages of Junior magazine 🙂 We then walked down (bloody miles in my heeled boots!) to Harvey Nichols for a hot chocolate before I got a cab back to Victoria.

Sure enough it was a skanky old train home again which I had to stand on ’til we changed (about an hour’s stand – in the heeled boots 🙁 ) and then about 20 minutes on the next train where I got a seat. Dad picked me up from the station and I was home by about 7.30pm. I had spoken to the kids twice on the phone and Davies had waited up for me, so I read him a story, washed all the train and London grime off in a bath, we had a takeaway to thank Dad for babysitting (which he paid for! 🙂 ) and then an early night.

Off now to Fun Junction soft play to meet up with Julie and the twins. Back later 🙂