Days, at times, now differ as I try to move out of my comfort zone. Variety brings new challenges. Some good, some bad and some bizarre. Today was one of the strangest. I had my camera in my pocket and pondered for a moment whether I should crouch down to take a photograph of the scene I had found myself in but I didn't. More pressing matters took precedence. I was standing in the middle of a busy roundabout surrounded by streams of cars moving on and off at speed. All the while I was spinning this way and that looking for an opening in the traffic which just was not coming. You see my keys were on the road and I desperately needed them. They were in sight but out of reach.
Normally I'm pretty edgy anyway but here I felt like I was suffocating and my legs were shaking. If I did not get my keys back I could not get back into the house and if I could not get back into the house I would go insane. What didn't help either was that this particular panto was being played out in the full glare of many bemused motorists who must have been worried what I was going to do. It was these kind of thoughts that were plaguing me and fuelling the fear as soon as I realised the ramifications of not having my house keys. All the while my wife was in the car park with the kids. She became impatient and joined me in the middle of the road as we both looked to play chicken with the speeding traffic. Later she told me she was shaking too so not that daft a reaction after all. It was she though who a driver saw and flashed her to get on the road for the keys. Scary stuff but relief in the end. And I might add something that we had a right good laugh about afterwards which released pent up tension.
Earlier my wife had to go to Focus to get some plants and I decided I would go with her. The good thing was that should I have felt the need it was walkable back home. So we drove down, went in, browsed about and came back out with the two kids. It was good. Quite a bit of anxiety and it didn't help for the most part that I was carrying the boy but at times enjoyable. At one point I lost myself in the garden attempting to snap a bee but came back with about 20 out of focus photos- fun trying though. And the good thing about that was that I was so involved in it I was unaware whether there was anyone else around me.
When we came out we put the kids in the car. While I put the boy in I left my car keys, which also has my house keys, on the roof. As I was adjusting the boy's seat I heard my wife clamber over and take the keys off the roof before getting in and starting the engine. So we were then off home. Going around the roundabout my wife heard a noise and I said it was probably just the plants moving around in the boot. Then when we got home I discovered that my wife was in fact using the other set of car keys and had not taken the keys off the roof as I thought. For once we shared the panic as we dashed back in the car and tried to locate the missing keys. And there they were on the road at the roundabout where countless vehicles were running over them.
A bit of an unusual day but a welcome break from the monotony. It has given me the appetite to get out somewhere tomorrow again during the day. More so since the dual carriageway will be closed this week again so day time seems as good as any for a drive.
