Minnie’s Musings

So, it helps to remember to set an alarm instead of relying on a third party to realise you are sound asleep at the appointed hour of departure.

After a lifetime of getting up, suiting and booting at speed, we were in the car not 20 minutes later. Whisking around the motorway through more scarlet circles of doom we eyed the ticking clock and I worried that our hand held scales for luggage weighing were not as accurate as I hoped.

What I assumed was standard not-a-mornings-person blues from our youngest in the back seat (present for purposes of taking the car home) turned into she-might-actually-be-sick rustling of plastic carrier bag.

As said youngest is not a child and is perfectly capable of sorting herself out, one felt one could leave her to fend for herself so we left her on the top floor of the car park in the early morning sunshine as we rushed off to find our departure gate. Once through bag drop and security check-in (what my hair scissors were doing in my make-up bag, I have no idea, why does this always happen to me…) we had breakfast and went to find a seat in the departure lounge.

I began to fret. The fourth heatwave of the Summer was getting going and there was no water bottle in the car. I rang our youngest. She really was quite ill. And it wasn’t drink (she doesn’t). And it can’t have been food poisoning as we had eaten together. I told her to drink clear liquids and have a nap. And then gave her long, detailed and extremely firm instructions on how and when to pull over on a motorway safely.

I fretted some more and then texted my friend and asked her to check on youngest as we were about to get on the plane and I was worried. As mothers around the world will testify, we are prone to creeping worry and my worry was creeping at a considerable and not particularly petty pace.

I sighed with grateful relief when friend texted back shortly thereafter, announcing “they” would jump in the car in half an hour, for which read getting husband out of bed, letting the dog out and filling up on coffee before galivanting to the rescue.

On landing across The Pond, I discovered that the journey back had involved a two hour traffic jam on the M25 which made me feel extremely guilty, but also a good long chat and catch up for two out of the three traffic-jamees which partially ameliorated said guilt.

We do these things for each others children. It is a function of living opposite each other for the majority of their childhoods, in a quiet close where duvets and pillows can be dragged over the road for sleepovers and keys to the front door are exchanged. It is also the flip side to “Of course, I know nothing…” grumbling as they progress through their teenage years which is but a small price to pay in advance of grandchildren who go home at the end of the day.