Miles

I walked over four miles today, and have excused myself from pilates. It's not that that's a very good excuse, but more that whenever Mabel doesn't nap, the time she needs to go to bed is just exactly when I would be at pilates. So I can't go. Tonight, she dissolved into a screaming, flailing pile of noooooo at 7pm exactly, whereupon I whisked her upstairs, read a quick book, coaxed her to lie down just to see what happened, and she was out in no time flat. She must have been really exhausted, because usually she will not absolutely never ever no way go to sleep before Monkey's stories have been read. So I'm glad I skipped the class (which starts at 6.45) because she'd never have made it to 8.00, when I would get back, without a lot of grief for all concerned. As it is, I think I lost an eardrum.

I say over four miles, because my husband the runner knows how far anything around here is from anything else, and he did the math(s) for me. The day was beautiful - like the nicest possible summer's day in Ireland, which means it was about 70 degrees and sunny. Perfect for a walk. I took the empty stroller and our packed lunches down to the nursery school at eleven, power walking at top speed because I thought I was going to be late, to find myself arriving ten minutes early. Even better, Mabel was not immediately spottable in her teacher's arms, so I knew things were going well. She ran happily to meet me, and reports of her morning were good. Just a little tearing up around snack time when she didn't want any nachos and told everyone who would listen about how Mummy hadn't fed her dinner last night. Again. Sheesh, that Mummy.

Anyway, that was a very quick mile and a bit, and coming home again after lunch at the playground was slower going, what with the occupied stroller and the person jumping out of it every now and then to "run ahead" i.e. dawdle behind, and then the big hill just before home.

My parents live in a cul-de-sac at the top of two steep hills. Wherever you go, you have to go down at least one of them, and usually both. I used to daydream, as I slogged back up after school every day, of miraculous outdoor escalators of the future that would take me home without effort. (They actually have outdoor escalators now, you know. I've been on them in Italy and Spain. But I don't think Ireland got any.) I still have actual night-time dreams where a bus stop has miraculously appeared on our road, at the top of the hill. But then I'm usually late for my exams and have to walk along some fictional road by the crashing sea to find my school and I can't keep my eyes open so I won't be able to read the questions. I'm usually not naked, but sometimes I'm topless. At least my teeth aren't falling out.

Anyway, I'm apparently fated to live at the top of hills, because here we are on one again.

So that was two and a half miles. I needed a drink of water and a bit of a sit down after that. Mabel decided not to take a nap, but I nearly dropped off on the sofa beside her, and it was only thanks to my foresight in setting the kitchen timer to wake me that we got to school in time to collect her brother. Up to school is another half mile, according to my source, and back home; and then half an hour later we went back up to to the playground only a block or so away from the school to fly kites, or try to fly kites, with some friends. Which makes almost another two miles.

And now I am thinking that I would like to get a trailer for my bike, if Mabel would sit in it, because I much prefer biking to walking.