CT Feature
door, and the car keys on their hook. Somehow, I managed to maintain my outward calm, congratulate my Stirling Moss-manque on getting the car going, and explain why she is not allowed to do so. Inwardly, I was thinking of the McCanns and their daughter Madeleine and what the press and social media would have said about my poor parenting had someone driven off with my Girl.
Anyway, soon after, we were en route to Newport. As a Cardiffian I have a love-hate relationship with Newport. I love to hate the place. (Why is it that Newport has more motorway junctions than Cardiff? So that people can escape. Just joking.) That December day, getting into Newport was problematic enough. I missed the Malpas turning off the M4 and had to go on down to the Celtic Manor junction. I twice missed the correct turning for the Kingsway car park ending up in a queue facing away from the leisure centre so that I could turn around and join the queue to get into the leisure centre.
By this point we were thirty-five minutes late, the Girl was wondering if we were 'there yet', and I was desperate for a pee. Then, when I got into the car park, I made one wrong turn and we found ourselves in the exit lane, unable to turn around, and being asked by a machine to pay £2 to escape. With cars building up behind us and one of them tooting its horn at us I started jabbing at the 'Help' button like a man possessed. (Thinking: "oh god I need a pee".) Eventually, an attendant came and he was lovely! He didn't charge us for my errors, allowed us out to U-turn back in again, and explained to me how to use a multi-storey car park. (Cardiff 0: Newport 1!)
We had now parked the car, were forty-five minutes late and I was in meltdown mode. I could think of
nothing but finding a toilet. My head was pounding. (Inside my mind: "please god, please please please please please".) The Girl was still asking me if we would be at the party soon. Perhaps because I was not thinking straight, perhaps because this was turning into the worst day of my life, we walked out of the wrong door in the car park and then had to retrace our steps from the locked fire exit we had wandered into, across the car park in completely the opposite direction ("omg lost again, omg I hate Newport, omg I need a pee, omgomgomgomg"). With every unnecessary, repeated step of that trek hurting so much that I told The Girl I would have to 'go' behind a parked car if we didn't get to the leisure centre soon, "like, in the next two minutes". My head beyond meltdown now a single, insistent, throbbing mantra: "must FIND a toilet must find a TOILET MUST find a toilet..."
But then, so suddenly, exiting the multi-storey, there it is - the leisure centre! Everything merges into the historic present tense. I pull The Girl as fast as her little legs can run, we stop in reception long enough to startle the staff. "WHERE IS THE TOILET PLEASE!!!", I am crying out. I am nearly crying. I AM crying! I pick up the Girl (we are marginally faster this way) and run up a flight of stairs to the loo. I deposit The Girl outside and demand that she stay put. A tad later, immensely relieved, tenses returning to normal, and tensions eased, The Girl was where I left her.
The party was very good and we had the best of times there, chatting with old friends and making new ones; well worth the agonies of the trip. By my reckoning, during our journey between the two cities, we had gotten lost and found our way again five times. We had seen the best of Newport (its people) and the worst (the Kingsway multi-storey car park). But by the time we drove home The Girl was getting bolshie and my headache was pounding and my mood as dark as the black-cloudy, rain-swept skies. It was an imperfect but appropriate end to this day in our life when the Girl announced from the back seat, in no uncertain terms, that her Invisible Friend thought I was driving too fast.
... and that was my afternoon. 19 19
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