By: Blonde Two
It is nearly the middle of the year – no, I don’t mean midsummer’s day and am going to leave you to puzzle that one out for yourself for a while.
Anyway, as we drove up and down the motorway from between Down-South and Up-North this weekend, I had plenty of time to contemplate the year so far. I was trying to pick out some “Blonde Best Bits” (obviously we Blondes have some pretty impressive bits!) You might be surprised by my final choice …
My favourite “Blonde Best Bit” so far was the end of our Silver D or E practice, Blonde One and I had just had three days of camping, fretting and walking with two groups of youngsters. We were physically tired, grumpy with some of the kids and very, very wet. We had parked the car at the top of Newbridge Hill and walked down to meet parents with the teams. Despite my desperate hinting, none of the parents were able (or thought to) offer us a lift back up the hill so when everyone had gone, Blonde One and I were just left there, dripping in the empty car park.
It was an odd moment – I think we could both have cried. Instead of turning round and walking straight back up the hill, we bought a cup of tea from the ice-cream van (as ever, we both had this thought at once) and sat down on a rock to contemplate our fate.
If there is one thing that Blonde One and I do really well, it is cheer each other up. And after half a cup of good old English, we were laughing hysterically about the fact that we could have been warm at home like other, more normal, women of our age (we usually mention knitting at these moments). This hysteria was helped by the fact that Newbridge car park was starting to do that flooding thing it does so well and we were sitting watching the water level creep up over our boots.
We must have been quiet a sight (not that anyone else was mad enough to be there) – two soaking wet woman, sitting in a puddle, clutching their sides with laughter. Hot tea is good medicine but a giggle is even better and after our dose of both, we climbed the hill back up to the car quite merrily. It would appear that a soaking wet Blonde is a happy Blonde!
How anyone could walk up “THAT” hill merrily is beyond me – “Evil” springs to mind!! So good on you!!! I think there is a point with rain, where you get so wet, all you can do is laugh and it actually becomes almost (I said almost!!!) quite nice!!!
I tried putting myself in the shoes of the parents and thought “Would it have occurred to me to offer you a lift up the hill?” Well I think yes, being an observant person, I would have noticed a lack of cars for you to hop in to and would have picked up on your hints. Its only up the hill anyway, not halfway across the moor. Is that the teacher in me that knows the hours of spare time you give up to take out these fabulous kids at the weekends and holidays??? Or the kind compassionate side of my personality?? I’m afraid one thing I harp on about a lot is how selfish British society is becoming and everyone is so caught up in their own bubble that they don’t notice (or don’t want to notice) others around them – really frustrates me. Dad has just returned from a tour of American National Parks and had a “ooops, we’ve run out of petrol” incident. In the middle of nowhere but fortunately only 5 miles from the nearest town. He had a couple of hitch-hiking trips before he had enough fuel to fire up the car and each time the people waited for him to fill up the can and drove him back to the car – a total of 10 miles out of their way. Would the same happen in England???? Not so sure.
We should all vow to offer someone a lift up a hill before the end of the year. Who knows what might happen?!?
Hobbled around my daughters primary school after a meeting this afternoon in the hope someone might offer me a lift, but no – had to get a taxi 🙁
EEeeehhh lasses! I hope some of those manky parents read this blog!