Sunday, 4th July 2021
The attempted trip
So, last week, I told you I would be going to the office this week for just the one day. It was for an Excel training session booked two months ago when I had just started work. The option to attend over Zoom was offered but then very quickly discouraged. As the trainer said, it was much less effective that way. Given this, and the fact that almost everything we do for work requires more than a basic understanding of Excel’s functions, I was determined be there, and bought my ticket well in advance of last Wednesday.
All was fine until Lu approached me ten days ago as I was making dinner to show me the message from the Nigerian High Commission letting him know that a passport renewal appointment had been booked for him and Timi on that same morning I was meant to be in London.
“Let’s ride together,” he suggested.
Watching my lovely child-free train ride (with ample reading time) to London disappear, I reluctantly agreed.
But not without multiple suggestions that he find some other time to do the passport renewal. The High Commission had given the June 30th date but had allowed a two-week window, so that people could come any day within that period. Lu wasn’t pushing it though. He had applied for these passports for himself and Timi since October last year and was not taking any chances of being delayed any longer than he’d already been.
I stalled for as long as I could (and tried in vain to get a refund). Then I finally moved the dates of my ticket to the next time I was scheduled to be in the office, paid the difference, and, after choosing my first-day-in-the-office outfit, I set about helping Lu pack the usual road trip supplies into bags.
We were planning to leave the house at 5am, after grabbing the boys from their beds and strapping them, pyjamas and all, into their car seats. We would then drive over to Tee’s house where they could be cleaned, dressed and made ready for a long day of passport renewing. We would all take the Tube together into the centre of London, Lu with all three, to the High Commission at Embankment, and me to Monument. That was the plan.
Toiletries, clothes, shoes, books, tablets and sandwiches were packed and lined up at the front door alongside laptops, notebooks and passport application documents. We were ready to go. And so, far too late to have any kind of sensible energy for the day, we went to bed.
The next morning, exhausted to confusion, we piled into the car, load and all, and headed off.
All was fine until, about an hour and a half into our journey, I needed a wee. As Lu began to pull into the petrol station at Warwick Services, it became clear that something was wrong with the car. I was bursting so I tried to ignore his troubled face and ran into the station. When I returned, the troubled look had turned to one of deep frustration.
He turned to me and said, “Yeah, we’re not going anywhere soon.”
Now, as I have said before, I am no DIY genius, so my explanation of what was wrong is not going to be great, but, apparently, there was once a hose that once contained brake fluid and that hose had somehow been broken and there was brake fluid everywhere. The sense I got was that that was not a good thing.
(What was a good thing, though, was that given that brakes are pretty vital, especially on a motorway, it was kind of divine that we found this out when we were making a stop. Not that my eager-to-be-on-her-way self was ready at that moment to see the bright side of anything).
RAC were called, and they arrived pretty quickly. But they were no help. The recovery patrol guy didn’t have the part we needed and expressed mighty doubt that we would get our hands on one or get the car fixed before the end of the week. To make it worse, because he judged the problem to be Lu’s fault, our situation did not qualify for free recovery. We would have to pay over £200 to get anywhere within a 20-mile radius. We were 73 miles from home.
***
Side note, for context
I may not be given to DIY but as I described in this post, Lu is.
He will attempt to fix anything, and with cars, everything. The upside of this is how much money this often saves us. The downside is how much money this often costs us.
The week before, he did some work on the car that, with a garage, would have cost us more than £1000—not counting parts. By deciding to take on the job, he spent, on tools, oils and parts, less than half that and was left with stuff he could use again. However, because it was a D-I-Himself job, any mistakes were on our head. And in the case of the RAC callout, because the guy decided the broken hose was caused by something Lu didn’t put right in his repairs, it meant we weren’t covered for a towing.
That said, there is another upside to Lu’s we-can-fix-it attitude: when people like Mr RAC deliver their sympathetic speeches about how much this and that will cost and how there is no way we can get this or that done before the end of the week, Lu nods politely but inwardly announces, “Hold my keys.”
***
And, back to the side of the road
I was upset. Lu knew I was, and I suspect that made him even more agitated than the broken brakes. He knew how much I was looking forward to going to the office and how undesirable was the idea of joining the training on Zoom.
(“Ehn ehn. I don’t want to be at a disadvantage. Everyone will be present there and I will be that person going, ‘Sorry? Could you repeat that please—my internet cut off.’”)
“I’m really sorry about this,” he offered with a pained look.
“It’s OK; it’s not your fault,” I grumbled back.
And then he had an idea.
We weren’t far from Olly and Bros D’s, (“If we go there, I can get the part and fix the car myself …”) and also, we weren’t far from Coventry train station (“If you buy a ticket quickly, you can get the next train out…”)
***
The one who got the next train out
I got to the office just in time for the training. My colleagues, who I had emailed earlier saying that I might not make it, were thrilled to see me.
“I hope the session is worth all the effort you made,” the trainer laughed.
It was.
And not just that: getting the chance to meet my fellow trainees, my line manager and some of my project managers in person made it more than worth it. Many of them looked very different from the indication I had got over Zoom. Some were taller than I expected; others, much shorter. But all were just as warm and welcoming.
Oh, and the office is just fantastic. I imagine it’s no different from any other office in a big city, but, in this regard, me, I am a village woman. I have never worked anywhere quite so fancy—and with such gorgeous views. I found myself gushing over everything and at one point was tempted to drink coffee (which I never do) simply because its preparation is controlled by a shiny iPad!
Towards the end of the day, I settled into a brightly coloured sofa in the kitchen area, enjoying the nutty flavour of my tea (being sipped from my new sustainable office mug). As I listened to my line manager’s soothing encouragements and stared out the vast windows at a man kayaking down the Thames, a thought swam through my mind. It was the same thought that had entered it the minute I was handed my pass at the large welcome desk behind the revolving doors: I probably shouldn’t, but I could certainly get used to this.
***
The one who got the part and fixed the car
“Hold my keys.”
That was Lu’s attitude to being told that there was no way the car could be fixed that day.
No one seems to have the part; I have called everywhere. And even if you got it, no garage would take you today. You’re looking at the end of the week at the very best.
Half an hour later, he had purchased a part online and had made a booking to collect it later in the afternoon. He then began trawling the internet to see how much new tools would cost (because all of his were back home in Crewe).
“Take my keys.”
That, from Olly, who was pure gold the entire day. She offered Lu her own car and he decided to return to Crewe to get his own tools, saving him the cost of buying new ones.
Back at Coventry, his body was completely done with him, so he sat and rested while the boys watched TV, and Olly, who was working upstairs, popped in regularly to check on them.
Later on, feeling stronger, he went and picked up the part then headed out to the car, and while the boys played with some of Olly’s neighbours’ children, he fixed the broken hose—in less than an hour.
Not long after that, in the same car that Mr RAC had been called to and had declared unfixable-within-a-week, a very smug Lu drove to Coventry train station to pick up a very satisfied me.
***
The guilt trip
I know I’ve said many times that I will stop letting guilt rule my mind—and many of you have sent me really reassuring messages concerning this. They really help, honestly. But now and then, I still struggle. And this week, I did so particularly.
Now there was already an underlying niggle burning slowly in the background, one that never really goes away: I am not spending enough time with these boys. That, alongside its recent housemate: I am not on top of the boys’ needs.
On Friday morning, to join the party came the following. First it was the message from Timi’s school (soon to be Tomi’s ‘big school’ and Temi’s nursery) gently reminding me to return the form to complete Temi’s registration. My first thought (What form?) was not encouraging. (My mind these days is a cluttered mess and it’s a job finding anything within it. Much like my house, really.)
Second was my realisation, too late, that Timi had neither turned in his homework nor completed the maths work Miss Teacher had set for him to do on the day we tried to go to London. After composing one long epistle to explain myself to her, and forcing him to rush through it all, I went into his book bag to put them in. That’s where I encountered the third thing.
There was an envelope in his book bag addressed to us. I had no idea how long it had been in there. I used to check his book bag every day—used to. I opened it to find, no, not the forms for Temi’s registration (it turns out they didn’t ever give me those, phew), but the forms filled to get permission to take your child out of school. Lu had sent them in the week before for both the passport appointment this week and for Nana’s funeral in two weeks. What I had in my hands was the headteacher’s response: a big fat ‘no’.
“Unauthorised absence.” That’s what the forms said. Embassy visits were not authorised reasons for absence, one read. And on the other, was scribbled, Only the funeral day will be authorised; the other days do not count as ‘exceptional circumstances.’ It was nonsense of course—what did they expect us to do?—but it filled me with irrational guilt, like we were irresponsible parents taking our child out of school for frivolous reasons, and, as the form warned, causing disruption to his learning.
Lu felt no such guilt; anger had taken up all the space in his head.
(“So, what do they want me to do? Are they going to charge us a fine when my grandmother has died?At £60 per parent per day!”)
And I might have felt the same as him but all I could think of was that I was that mother who couldn’t manage to sort out her children’s homework, school registration or attendance—and it wasn’t as if I were on top of my deadlines at work either!
In the end it wasn’t really a problem. I went to the school to explain that we had no choice and that it would be unfair to fine us. They reassured me that we would not get fined—that was really for parents who chose to take the children out for five consecutive days. They said also that in the case of the embassy visit, they regretted that it couldn’t be changed: it had always been an unauthorised reason for absence and many other families suffered the same thing. (I decided to bite back my ‘OK, so why…?’ retort). As for the funeral, they said they would reconsider.
As I headed back home, I felt a little bit better but not completely. I am not the worst parent on the planet, obviously, but as I said to Lu, if we are in the advanced class, we are at the bottom and are at risk of being demoted.
***
Getting organised
I am determined to reintroduce some order to our lives and this weekend, I began by tidying up forgotten drawers and getting rid of junk. I barely scratched the surface, but as always, it was therapeutic to fill bin bags with stuff to be skipped or Freecycled.
(The fact that those bags will likely remain in a corner in the house for another couple of months is unimportant to mention).
The determination continues, nevertheless. We have some very tough months ahead of us. The boys finish school in two weeks, and somehow Lu has to complete his master’s dissertation with the boys at home all day, while I work full time. The only way we will survive is if we get organised. It’s handy, therefore, that Lu and came across this Mind Valley talk on being ‘indistractible’. I usually scoff at such ideas but actually this one was immensely useful. One of my biggest takeaways was the importance of scheduling everything, including rest.
We’ve both been talking plenty about getting responsible with our sleep pattern, and now I am making a firm decision to stick to a strict bedtime…
…starting tomorrow. I was disciplined enough last night to put writing this aside and go to bed. Not so much the case tonight, but that’s only because of the day I’ve had.
You see, what happened was—no, you know what? I’ll tell you next week. Going to get some sleep.
***
Photo by Adyant Pankaj on Unsplash
Lu Me & Them 