Up early to make tortillas and see Kai off on his school trip to
Drayton Manor. The letter about the trip didn't say whether the kids were supposed to wear school or own clothes, so 6.30 am had us ringing the school to ask. Unfortunately there was no-one there who could tell us - so I ended up packing him off in school uniform with his jeans and a comfortable thin fleece in his rucksack. And just as well we did as it
was own clothes, and he had time to change before they boarded the (double decker with mini-screens for films: they watched
Shrek 2 and
Fantastic Four 1 on the way back...) coaches. They were due back at 7 pm, and everyone was asked to make arrangements to collect their sprogs.
I found out this evening his main worry had been that he'd been paired with a couple of schoolmates who had already planned what they were going on - all the 'thrill' rides - without bothering to take Kai's views into account (which I am, quite understandably, miffed about since one of them is a boy he considers a friend). However, when they got to the park 'Sir' (yes, they call the teacher that!) decided to revise the plans and have them in groups of four instead, and Kai ended up in a group of six (no, I don't know how that happened) which included at least two like-minded sprogs who also weren't keen on attempting the 'thrill' rides.
The result was Kai had a wonderful time, trying the slower, less dramatic but still exciting rides instead. He wolfed down all the food he'd taken (after asking me this morning if I'd be upset if he didn't eat it all) and shared his Chocoboy Japanese biscuits with the group. Apparently they really like it when Kai takes in Japanese sweets...
While this was all going on I went out to PC World to take back the Samsung Pleomax hard drive ... Isn't that a lovely word?
Pleeeeee ohhhhh max. Pleistocene to the Max! Plesiosaurs and Pteradactyls and Ankylosauruses.. Probably got my eras mixed up but what the hell... Where was I?... Oh yes...
Thought I'd have time to grab a FirstDay ticket, head out at three, and be at the school to meet Kai at seven. I was a little late leaving, but even though it takes an hour each way to get to Cribbs Causeway I should still have had plenty of time...
Got to PC World, took the hard drive out and before I'd even unpacked the cable the assistant sighed and said "They sent you the euro plug one, didn't they?"
He offered a replacement, which I was happy with, although I was also going to ask for a refund of the P&P since I'd had the extra cost of busing out there to return it, but when he came back he was carrying one of
these, 100 gig more storage and a little more expensive than the Samsung - which, apparently, has been withdrawn, though whether because of the plugs or because of the alarming rattling we found on lifting the thing up he couldn't say. Anyway, I'm happy with it, and very pleased with the service. Headed back to the bus - and that's when things started going wrong.
Ken rang to say Kai had rung to say they'd be home early - an
hour earlier than expected, at six instead of seven. In other words, I had slightly over an hour to get to the school. But, said Ken, I could get either a number 1 or a number 40 bus, they both dropped off at Penn St, which is where the 41 and 43 (the buses I needed to get to the school) pick up. It's a half hour trip back into town from Cribbs Causeway on the 1, a twenty minute trip up to Kingswood, and a ten minute walk to the school from the bus stop - tight, but doable.
I'd missed the number 1, but the number 40 was ready to leave, so I leapt on...
Ken hadn't bothered to check the route, or how long it took to get back into town, and I had no idea, I've never caught it before. I know now. It goes almost out to Avonmouth before doubling back on itself and
crawling along the scenic route through places I'd never heard of. It was an hour before I got back into Briz, by which time Kai had rung twice, once to say they were a little delayed (which was good) and a second time to say they had arrived - before I'd even got to Broadmead. End result was I arrived to pick him up at
twenty past bloody seven.
Of course, this also meant we missed the bus back down the hill that would have got us to the bus station in time to catch the 8 pm X39. We did manage to make the 8.24 number 1 from Penn St but it was close: luckily we were on the bus when it absolutely bucketed down or I'd probably have been homicidal by the time we got back.
Anyway, we arrived home at a little before 9 pm, tired, stressed out and - in my case - really
really pissed off. Not only did it throw the whole day out but there was also the embarrassment (and guilt) of having to apologise to the poor staff waiting - they couldn't go home until all the kids had been picked up.
It's the sheer
unnecessariness of it that makes me angry. Ken
knew how tight the timeline was - why the hell didn't he just look up the bloody times?
Taking my foul mood off to try to do something with it...
Labels: domestic disasters, drayton manor, sprogs
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 12:44 am
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