Walk One Hundred and Sixty-Three – Blooming awful day

The day started badly. With only minutes to get Xavier to morning nursery, I jumped into the car (that I have repeatedly told the resident mechanic, is not starting properly) to find the battery was completely dead. So I called a taxi. As the taxi arrived Xavier thought that this would be a good time to fill his pants with the most horrible... OK I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say I had legs, bottom, clothes and upholstery to deal with, at this point one of my clients rang up to discuss an urgent job – I got as close as I’ve ever got to telling them to sod off. Anyway with the newly cleaned Xavier deposited in the taxi we set off. As we neared the nursery I realised I had no money to pay the driver, so after leaving my darling boy at the nursery we then had to detour via a cashpoint machine before returning home £11.50 worse off.
You may wonder why so many of my walks head away from the nearby connurbation. Well although we have some lovely and interesting buildings both old and new in St Albans and the surrounding area, most of the suburban domestic housing nearby is just plain depressing. The road that I had to walk down at lunch (that the nursery is on) consists of 1960s/1970s mainly semi-detatched houses. A window shutter salesman must have had a field day there about 20 years ago because almost every other house has faux shutters glued onto the brickwork, completely out of keeping with the style of architecture, but presumably a despairing attempt by the homeowners to ‘prettify’ their houses. So to be obliged to walk there to collect Xavier because of the car did not please me. This was made worse by the fact that I was wearing a pair of needle cord trousers, that I can’t bring myself to throw away, because they always look good and fit perfectly as soon as they come out of the wash. The reason I should throw them away however is that by magic they become two sizes bigger once I’ve worn them for about an hour, so the entire walk I was hitching up my trousers. As I walked Xavier (eating his lunch en-route) to afternoon nursery, the drizzle started.
I left Xavier at nursery consoling myself that the long looked forward to visit by a nursery class-mate was happening today. However when I came to pick him up, the mother of the class-mate came up to me and said ‘do you mind if we leave the visit ’till next week – something has cropped up’. I could have quite happily strangled the woman as I wondered how I was going to explain this to Xavier, who has every day for over a week asked if the boy in question is coming to play today. And as for trying to draw in the rain – this is the best I could manage – me with a black cloud of crossness as I walked back over the Woodland Park.
OK rant over, normal service will resume tomorrow.