We are late for our trip to Ireland for my sister’s wedding, and the app informs us the bus is moving backwards through time. First six minutes, then seven, eight, nine… Our son suggests we just get on any of the many buses going in the opposite direction, not quite comprehending our having a preferred destination in mind.
When the bus arrives, he’s so incensed that it’s travelling ‘the wrong way’, that he has to be dragged on by his armpits. This takes some doing as we are carrying two 20kg suitcases and a fully laden buggy, replete with six-month-old child. She, too, is screaming and will not have stopped for longer than five minutes throughout the entire duration of this column. I clasp my son in Daddy’s Death Grip and he squints at me with righteous fury, looking for all the world like a furious little 12th-century warrior nun. I should have added that our pre-travel trip to the hairdresser the previous Saturday resulted in nine snips of his fringe before he jumped out of his chair. Since then, he’s sported the flowing bob and squared-off fringe made popular by Joan of Arc. An entirely appropriate likeness, since he is keen on spending today being God’s one perfect martyr.
