but obviously needed a life lesson to remind me.
First, gather information myself. Do not rely on the written word, or the report of the 8 year old. Question him closely. If I’d done that, I wouldn’t have tried quite so inefficiently to be in two different places at exactly the same time today.
I can’t have been the only parent with this problem. Two children in different uniformed groups, both groups involved in the annual Beach Watch cleanup program, their groups starting at the same time but 2 miles apart. (Two miles by road. Was probably rather less than that as the fish swims. But we needed to travel by road.)
So I decided that I’d drop Big off first. Her group were only meeting for 2 hours, and I knew where I was going for her drop off. Couple minutes late, just because, obviously, so by the time I’d trekked all the way back up the traffic calmed road, driven all the way round and then got held up at the level crossing we were about 15 minutes late. And that was the point Small chose to announce
“I think we’re going to be too late.”
“No it’s OK, if they aren’t in the carpark we’ll just walk down and find them.”
“No, I think we’ll have missed the bus.”
“Um, bus?”
It transpired that we were supposed to be gathering in a carpark some distance from the actual clean up zone, and then they were to be shuttled down to the site in a minibus. Which fairly obviously we had long since missed.
Aargh. So we stood and waited for the bus to reappear, and there was no one from Small’s group to be seen. But there was another Beaver leader waiting with a few small children, and she took my phone number and said she’d find Akela for him, and call me to say if she couldn’t, so I sat in the car in the carpark and waited.
And waited. And then I waited some more. Then when I was on the phone to Tim for the third time trying to work out what to do, I realised that there was a voicemail notification. Small safely delivered. Phew. So I dashed off, raced round the supermarket, and was a couple of minutes late to pick Big up. Who apparently had finished half an hour early but had asked that her leader didn’t call me as she knew I was busy. So thoughtful.
I begged Tim to do the pick up for Small. Which was apparently equally chaotic. Not helped by there being about three groups that appeared to have chosen the same slot in the same location, so there were about 60 ppl waiting to be shuttled in the 14 seat minibus. (I’m guessing. Like I say, I wasn’t actually there.) It took him the best part of an hour anyway, so he was well chuffed.
And that was most of the day gone. Cooked up a curry for tea tonight that was a bit bland – won’t be bothering with Mr Grossman’s Korma again, even if it is on offer. And then Tim and L took the two older children out for an evening walk, and were gone a good hour and a half, meaning I had time to sort laundry, change disgraceful nappies and finally write a blogpost.
Is it bedtime yet?
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