Bad Person

The children refused point blank to accompany us to Kendal for the planned shopping trip today.

No amount of persuasive discussion or promises of unlimited sweets (yes, really) would budge them.

They maintained determinedly that we were old and dull, that they have more than done their bit for Family Bonding this holidays, and in any case, Oliver was urgently needed on his Playstation to fight Jedi, or whatever the baddies are called in the new Star Wars game: there don’t appear to be any zombies in it so I have not really grasped the plot yet:  and Lucy wanted to sit in her bedroom writing fan fiction and being admired on social media.

Lucy is something of an aspiring writer. Lots more people read her stuff than read mine, which is humbling whenever I start feeling pleased with my creative efforts. I tell myself that it is because I have only a nodding acquaintance with vampire dragon lords as features of my prose, and that my readership would doubtless be every bit as good as hers if only I popularised the subject matter a bit. Actually I think there is more sex in hers.

Whatever the appeal, she firmly intended to spend the day getting on with that and her Mandarin prep. No amount of offers of a lovely family lunch out or free rein to choose her own flavour of Pot Noodles in Asda would entice them to come, and in the end Mark and I went by ourselves.

We are well used to going out without the children anyway, and didn’t really expect that they would want to come to the council offices to watch us filling in forms, or to Asda to help chuck sliced bread and dog food into the trolley: we just enjoy their company, going places together is ace fun.

In the end it was probably just as well that they didn’t come because it was an unexciting trip, with a list of activities to be accomplished as diverse and thrilling as buying insoles for Oliver’s school shoes, renewing our taxi licenses and taking a bit back to Autoparts. It was hard enough to sustain my own interest, so we would not have stood a chance of engaging the children’s.

In the end we couldn’t afford to do lunch out anyway, on account of accidentally going to the pub instead of to work last night.

The night had started off perfectly well, full of marvellous intentions for hard work and worthy virtue. However at around nine o’ clock we were sitting quietly on the taxi rank reading our books and drinking tea, when there was a knock on the window and our friends from Lakeside Taxis were there, grinning broadly and miming drinking pints.

I do wish they would find another route from the Bodega Bar to the Stag’s Head.

Their current route takes them right past the taxi rank, which is of course why it is there, in order to facilitate effortless discovery of taxis.

They are such a bad influence.

The problem is that I am only a good parent and sensible individual as a result of a great deal of sustained effort. In my inner soul I have got the self-control of a four year old with somebody else’s ice cream, and also an enormous liking for fascinating gossip and red wine.

Of course I resisted stoutly.

I explained that we could not possibly go at all, not under any circumstances, because we had got to earn money, and that I had in any case already imbibed rather too much over Christmas, and that it was a busy time for us.

About ten minutes after that somehow the taxis had been dumped at the side of the road and we were in the pub.

We are so predictable that by the time we got there there were already two glasses of red wine waiting on the bar.

There followed an evening of absolutely captivating gossip, the sort that is only possible in a small community in a small town; and taxi stories, and raucous laughter.

It was an ace night, although not without regrettable financial consequences.

I am a bad person.