Dusk in south Wales (14 November 2009)

I had a surprisingly lovely afternoon, the main objective of which was to go into Taunton to pick up my bike after its service. Ally and co kindly gave me lift in and for some reason, I decided that taking the two-year old with me while I went to the Post Office and so on would be a great idea. Rubbing their hands with glee, Ally and B refrained from pointing out that only rarely can you combine the words “shop” and “toddler” and escape with your sanity and hearing intact but – happily – my walking buddy was on her best behaviour.

She enjoyed sitting in the child seat of the shopping trolley so much, that we went round twice, though it took a while to prise the washing up brush out of her hand at the tills. The walk down to the Post Office was hilarious, as she wanted me to name something from every shop window. Unless it was shoes. She was delighted with the abundance of footwear in Taunton and was rather taken with a pair of men’s skater trainers, as well as a pair of toddler-sized purple Crocs. It took me several minutes to convince her that we weren’t doing anything more than looking…

The jewellery shops were a big hit and she’s obviously going to have expensive tastes later on in life, as she wasn’t at all interested in anything under a grand! However, her magpie tendencies came into their own as we walked past the Ann Summers shop, where she saw all the pinks and purples and was utterly enchanted, much to my amusement and the horror of a rather elderly chap walking by, doing his best to avert his eyes from the six foot high poster in the window of a pair of rather shapely legs, adorned by nothing more than stockings and a pair of knickers that were clearly *not* designed for comfort.

So, a gentle afternoon, followed by tea and cake in a very nice cafe, whose proprietor was extremely understanding about the utter chaos we left in our wake. T’was the kids, honest.