I'd been back in the UK for 72hrs, back and forward to the hospital to see my dad, but once he came home, I ventured out to see the kids.
I drove from Monmouth to Gloucester and my stress levels went through the roof.
Road rage, pot holes and just general ignorance.
I took my disabled step daughter who is 24 into the city for a coffee in Starbucks. I can't carry a tray and hold her nor can I leave her at a table while I fetch the drinks as she wanders off and grabs at other peoples food. So in true 'Little Britian style' as the carer of Andy I have to explain what help I need, so we stand in the queue, me fighting with her not to grab the food off people's trays as they walk past or the cakes out the display cabinet, order, throw money and just tell the staff to bring the change and the coffee to us. We sit at a cramped table with her grabbing the arms of passers by and pushing the table into me. The drinks arrive, no suger or spoon. I sit my drink on the floor while I sort hers out, she finishes it in one go and I leave my non sugared latte half drunk.
It's raining and windy, I drag her back to the car, we go in and straight out a few shops and drive to Asda for lunch. She grabbed a sausage of a guys tray, we apologised, he said 'please go in front, order and I'll bring your tray over' we repaid him later but ramming his wife with the supermarket trolley.
It's still light here at 9.30pm, I keep thinking it's only 6pm and I'm going to bed so much later, making me grumpy and lacking in energy by the morning.
The bath is too small, the water boils too hot for the tea, the coffee is instant, the house is too hot, it rains, the skies are grey, it's over crowded, no one makes eye contact or smiles. The roads and the shops are over crowded....
....and it takes four times as long to get anywhere, one because there are too many cars on the road and two because I read the distance in kms now forgetting to convert the journey to miles.
I love the city I live in, but over the past few years it has gotten far too large for me. Too much traffic. I would love to move to the country but until my husband retires it is not in the cards.
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