Delayed Reaction

To answer Stegbeetle's question in the comments three posts down, I have no idea if my son worked out we had left for the jaunt on Saturday. Husband certainly knew, in fact as final preparations were made, his moaning from in front of his all important televised football match went from 'Can't you do that somewhere else?' to 'I thought you were going out!'

We even got back five minutes late for the start of Doctor Who.

All that stuff about doing this once a month? Pah. Sunday morning daughter decides she knows the short route to the High And Over now and wants to lead everybody there for a picnic lunch.

Fair enough - its only about 40 minutes each way if you take it at a snails pace, so I rustled up some cheese sandwiches and a bottle of diluted squash and off we set.

I should have known I was opening a can of worms when Husband enthusiastically dug out the digital camera and clipped it to his belt.

After a gentle stroll enjoying the air and the bravery/ indifference of the huge rabbit population, pretty much all on level ground, we got to the old picnic site. I say old, because there is only one bench left now and no tables, but the view over the valley and the river in both directions is absolutely breathtaking.

Fine. Sandwiches consumed and views admired, we'd been out for about an hour and the kids and I were ready to head back. Little things like school uniform laundry were calling to me in the back of my mind. Things to do.

"Why don't we go down to the river and walk up the banks to Alfriston?" says Husband, with that glaring, slightly manically enthusiastic smile that says every complaint you could possibly make will go straight over his head from here on in.

I gave it a good shot nonetheless, and complained several times en route, in fact I think I managed to polish my personal vitriol in the process. I was sniping like a true Diva before long, whilst my intended audience chuckled.

Yes, chuckled.

When he insisted the old way down the hill was still safe enough if you walk sideways (the one where half the steps have subsided and you have a dusty, chalky, crumbly slope to negotiate at approximately 1:1) and I ended up purposely inching down on my backside and telling him I hated his guts, he laughed.

When daughter went sliding and scared herself and told him she hated him too, he laughed.

When she trod on her thirtieth thistle and said it with tears in her eyes whilst I held her hand and said a lot of words under my breath, his truth radar still refused to function and he laughed.

When I told him I was fed up with him assuming every attack on his grand ideas was not genuine, nor based in reason, but simply feminine girly squealing of a vacuous nature (I was rather more gynaecological about it than that) the thick shit still didn't get the point.

When a large googly eyed cow who had obviously been for a bath in cow poop decided she liked us enough to follow us, block our path and stare us down almost nose to nose, and daughter got panicky (I wasn't too happy either) he showed no qualms and kept on walking.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very fond of him, but as to relying on him to assume I have little things of any gravity such as a brain or an opinion, or genuine disquiet - forget it. He wouldn't think that way, ergo I don't mean it. Or maybe its just the idea of me being other than indestructible that just won't register. I know I avoid being a simpering girly-girl like its the plague, but have I overdone it?

In the end we were out for another four hours, and the little village just up the road? Its true its only about five or six miles from home if you take the road, but following all the curves in the river you can triple that.

When he finally realised he had pushed his luck too far, there was suddenly and remarkably no plea of poverty when I pulled my best 'demon dog from hell' face and growled that were going to get a taxi home from the village, or else. At Sunday rates, to boot.

The whole point of sharing this little love story is to explain why I am blogging for the third time today.

It's because, however fit I felt this morning, however much I had to do around this house before going to collect the children from school, whatever small, trapped, 'Within These Walls' style plans I had, I made the mistake of sitting at this computer and actually doing some work, for a couple of hours.

And now I can't get up. The backs of my knees have seized. So I thought, "Well, while I'm stuck here...."

Now I don't know whether to try and find shoes with heels, to see if that allows me to fake standing upright, or whether I'll still have to lollop and hobble up the street to get the kids.

Somehow Quasimodo impressions look even more bizarre if you're wearing heels, don't you think?