Random ramblings - A bee in my bonnet

In the autumn Yorkshire experienced record levels of rain completely flooding the base.  Thankfully our house was spared the horrors many other experienced though no building seems to have been as badly hit as the primary school.  Water damage caused the entire school to be relocated to one of the training buildings and almost five months on the school is still closed.

With the barracks now in the slightly unusual position of having a hundred young children running, skipping and screaming across it every morning and afternoon as they get to school certain measures have been taken under the heading of “Health and Safety” the most obvious of which is the creation of a walkway along a road erected to ensure children don’t get run over by the passing traffic on the way to school. This sounds sensible enough in theory but sadly the actual implementation has been very poorly thought through. 

Firstly there is the location of the walkway – instead of locating the route between two properly paved pathways separated by a ten yard gap, the powers that be have placed it on the edge of two long roads, neither of which have a pathway between them.

Secondly there is the construction of the walkway – a set of plastic cones tied together with white rope and orange plastic tape.  The cones too flimsy and the rope and tape too long – today’s wind and rain has knocked over two cones despite them being held down with bags of rubble (one of which had split spilling stones all over the road).  Two sections of tape had snapped and were flapping about wildly threatening to whip anyone walking past and where the rope and tape was still connected it is so slack that it blew out not only across the width of the walkway but extended a foot beyond it over the muddy grass. 

Finally there is the guarding of the walkway - each morning some poor sod in uniform stands on the corner of the road directing parents and children.  By the afternoon however nobody cares about health and safety anymore and people go their own way.

And so, we come to this afternoon.  In the pouring rain with 20mph winds in my face, running late, I ran to nursery to collect Alby pushing the buggy in front of me.  Following the same route I and many other mums take each afternoon I ignored the walkway and took the more direct route.  Halfway across I was shouted at by somebody on the other side of the road. 

Now I fully accept that I was taking a short cut and I fully accept that the only way to be heard when you are trying to catch the attention of the person on the opposite side of the road is by shouting but still I felt very cross about it all.  Forget the rain and the wind, forget that I’m an adult pushing an empty buggy and forget that I and countless others have used that very route every afternoon for the past five months without issue, if you want me to do something you start your sentence with a “Can” and you end it with a “please”.  You don’t bark orders at me. 

I did what was told of me swearing under my breath the whole way but I couldn’t shrug it off. And so, once I’d collected Alby and walked the long way around (which by the by, I and all other children and parents had to do on the wrong side of the walkway, aka the middle of the road) I went to find out who had shouted at me.

This isn’t something I would normally do.  I usually stand very true to my British character in not complaining.  But whether it’s lack of sleep, subconscious feelings following Mark’s departure or hormones today I decided to speak out. 

I wanted to say that if you are going to impose a rule be consistent with it.  If you want to speak to somebody you come and talk to them, you don’t shout from across the road.  If you seriously mean to follow Health and Safety guidelines you need to come up with a better solution than what they’ve done. I managed to get a slightly more senior figure involved in the conversation than I wanted but so be it – nobody asked for my name so I like to think I’ve remained as anonymous as possible.  But despite it all being conducted constructively I left feeling like a total bitch.  I thought that having spoken my mind it would free me of the frustrations I’d been experiencing.  It did not.  I thought that it would make me feel better about the silliness of the situation.  It did not.  I thought that I would feel good about standing up for myself.  I did not.  I felt silly and petty and troublesome. 

There are two thoughts which dominate my mind after this incident.  Firstly, echoing what Mark advised the other day – I need to learn how to have a conversation without getting all emotionally involved in it.  When it comes to something pragmatic, be pragmatic.

Secondly, there’s something about needing to learn how to let go.  When my emotions (and good sense) are rattled I need to be able to respond and then get over it.  All too often I find myself still feeling the repercussions over an incident a week or longer since it’s happened.  Obviously not as strongly, but still.  There is an art form in both one I have yet to master but give me time.